A Spine-Tingling Tale
by Justice237
Summary: You know how everyone says your spine tingles when you're scared? Everyone lies. It feels like someone's dropped an anchor on your back, and before you know it, you're being sucked down into the tempestuous waters ...
1. Full Disclosure

**For those of you waiting for a new chapter of The Flood, I promise that I'll get on to that, but it's about time I published this story that I've wanted to publish for a while now. Just hang tight, and enjoy this in the meantime.**

It felt like his blood had turned to ice.

At the same time, it felt like he'd plunged into the fiery pits of Hell.

The sheer shock of it all caused the monochrome image in front of him to blur briefly, but he couldn't miss the tangled, messy-looking blob right in the middle of it. It looked like a white paint smear done by a careless child, but he knew that the MRI scanner had been sophisticated enough so as to not produce inaccurate results.

The neurologist and oncologist started explaining what they were seeing to him, but an insistent ringing in his ears mostly drowned them out. Even if he could hear them, he didn't want to concentrate on their diagnosis, afraid of what he might hear.

"It's malignant."

Those words finally wrenched his concentration away from the MRI image.

"He appears to have a Stage 3 anaplastic astrocytoma," the oncologist, Dr Gareth, continued. "It appears to have started growing at T11, but it's since reached T9. If we don't treat it, there is a chance it could grow larger and further compress the spinal cord, or spread up or down the cord."

He felt Mike's arm wrap around his shoulders in a poor attempt to reassure him. The man, who was sitting next to him on the padded table, asked, "What can you do for it?"

"Normally for this kind of tumour, our first option is radiotherapy," Dr Gareth replied, "but it is not without risk, especially in a child. There is a low chance the radiation will affect the non-cancerous cells around the tumour, which increases the chance of the tumour growing back. In that event, we will prescribe a course of chemotherapy-"

"No," Ryan interrupted, his voice returning to him at the mention of 'chemotherapy'. "I'm not having that."

"Ryan," Mike said sternly, though with a hint of sympathetic understanding, "Let the doctor finish."

"I'm not having chemotherapy!" Ryan insisted, ignoring Mike's words. "I'm not going through feeling so rotten that I'd rather be dead anyway because of a small chance that it'll reduce the size of this lump in my back!"

"Look, there's only a small chance that you'll need it anyway," Mike reasoned with him. "It'll only be if the radiotherapy isn't fully successful."

"I'm not taking that chance," Ryan retorted, before turning his attention back to the doctors in front of him. "Is there anything else? What about surgery?"

The doctors glanced at each other briefly, before the neurologist, Dr Preston, said, "For most other spinal tumours, surgery is our first option, yes. But in your case, that could prove difficult as the tumour may refuse to detach itself from the spinal cord, in which case it would be safer to leave it in for fear of causing spinal cord injury and paralysis."

Mike saw how Ryan winced at the doctor's last point, and how his grip tightened on the cane in his left hand. He'd been given the cane as the tumour pressing down on his spinal cord was causing numbness and pain in his legs. That, along with the heavy painkillers he was on for the back pain, made standing up for long and walking more difficult than it once had been, hence the need for the cane.

Ryan swallowed hard, before raising his head and looking Dr Preston in the eyes, trying to figure him out. It would be useful to do this early on - he had a feeling he'd be seeing the man a lot over the next several weeks. "Say I did have an operation, and you remove it completely, spinal cord injury or not - would it grow back?"

"Hypothetically, if we were to go through with that, it would greatly reduce the chances of the cancer growing back," Dr Preston confirmed, "but you would likely never walk again."

"Look, Ryan," Mike interjected, before the boy's imagination could run away with him, "I know you're scared of the side effects of the chemo, but that won't be your first option. Why don't you just have the radiotherapy and we'll see how that goes?"

"I don't want to take that chance!" Ryan let out, choking on his words a little, before his voice quietened and he closed his eyes tight, as if trying to keep the emotions inside. "I ... I don't want to die."

Mike's face softened completely, and he couldn't help but let out a sigh as he looked at the doctors himself. "You can see that this is a lot for him to take in," he implored, "so can you give him a few days to decide what he wants?"

* * *

"So ... that's it," Ryan said flatly, refusing to look directly at everyone's shocked faces at the news he had just delivered them.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, with everyone gathered around him to listen to his diagnosis. Normally, he'd try keeping something like this as hush-hush and under wraps as possible, but his using a cane would've immediately tipped them off that something was up.

Besides, it wasn't as if the last two weeks hadn't tipped them off already. It had begun with a sudden shooting pain in his knees and ankles that had accompanied a strong urge to sit down. At first, he'd just dismissed it as a side effect of standing for too long, but when he'd woken up the next morning with his back aching rather a lot, that was when he'd deciphered that something was off.

That was how it went for the next week and a bit, with the pain intensifying and him somehow managing to fall _up_ the stairs on more than one occasion, much to his chagrin, as his ankles became numb. It got to the point where he couldn't walk much further than about 60 feet at a time without either sitting down or leaning against something and recovering. He mostly tried to get out of this by sitting in his room and suffering in silence, though Chloe had noticed and jokingly offered him her wheelchair a few times.

All of it culminating in that very morning, when a moment of jubilant celebration of victory had gone from bad to worse faster than the star-shaped glial cells in his spinal cord. He and Tyler had developed a habit of jumping on each other's backs when they were happy, so looking back, he supposed he should've forseen that his friend would've eventually tried to pry a piggyback out of him - and he wouldn't be able to give it to him.

 _"Get off!" Ryan yelled, just split seconds after Tyler had jumped onto his back._

 _"Okay, okay," Tyler complied, getting off with a perturbed look on his face. "Sorry, I-" he started, but he was cut off when he noticed that Ryan had fallen forward, just barely catching himself on his hands. Crouching down to get a better look, he noticed that his fists were tightly clenched, his lips were pressed tightly together and his Adam's apple was practically plunging down and up in his throat, evident of his convulsive swallowing._

 _"Erm, Ryan, you okay?" Tyler asked, fear and worry bubbling in his stomach._

 _Ryan's eyes were squeezed shut, and against his rational mind screaming at him to say that his back and legs were destroying him, he nodded._

 _"Alright," Tyler said slowly. He was sceptical that Ryan really was okay, as neither his position nor the look on his face gave any signs that whatever was afflicting him was letting up, but he knew that he was unlikely to get a straight answer from him - he was too proud for that. "Think you can get up?"_

 _Against better judgement, Ryan attempted to shift his weight from his wrists to his legs so he could stand up - and instantly regretted it as pain exploded in his back and legs once again, only if the first explosion of pain was a single gunshot, this one was a whole firing squad. This time, he couldn't hold the scream back._

 _"Oh my God!" Tyler cried, his eyes popping. "Ryan, what's wrong?!"_

 _"It feels like someone's dropped an anchor on my back!"_

 _"Oh God," Tyler muttered fearfully. What had this innocent piggyback done to his friend? Had they been doing it too much lately? Had he slipped a disc? But slipped discs didn't hurt this much, did they?_ _"Mike, May-Li! Call an ambulance!"_

That had not been a pleasant start to the day, to put it lightly. Now, for Tyler, the only relief that had come from the diagnosis was knowing that the incident that morning hadn't been his fault - well, not entirely. But in all honesty, he'd rather it had been a slipped disc - that _was_ entirely his fault - than what it actually was.

"What are you gonna do?" Jody asked in the end, her expression a mixture of fear and worry.

"No idea," Ryan shrugged. "But I have a few days to decide."

"Are you going to die?!" Floss squealed, causing most of the older residents to look at her like she'd suddenly grown snakes for hair.

"I hope not," Ryan sighed, pressing a hand to his face. He badly wanted to get up and leave the situation, if only for a short time, but even doped up on painkillers, the thought of climbing stairs in his current state was inconsiderable.

"Why won't you just have the chemo?" Sasha asked. "It'll make you lose your hair, but big deal, it's better than having cancer."

This finally lit a spark in Ryan's currently dull eyes, and he flicked his gaze over to her, his unoccupied hand clenching into a fist on the table. "Do you really think it's as simple as that?! If the chemo meant losing my hair but curing my cancer, I would take it in a heartbeat, but it doesn't work that way. Not only are there a bunch of lovely side effects, such as puking my guts out and being permanently exhausted, but it may not do a thing to actually treat the cancer!"

Sasha blinked in surprise, and for the first time in ... well, ever, she found herself actually feeling bad for Ryan. "When you put it like that ..."

"We'll tell Chloe when she gets back, right?" Mo asked. Chloe had gone out on a trip with some of her classmates quite early in the day, and therefore hadn't been around to see Ryan's sudden collapse.

"No," Ryan said with a shake of the head, surprising everyone.

"What?!" Mo let out. "Why not? She needs to know!"

"What am I going to tell her?" Ryan responded.

"The same thing you told us?" Bailey asked.

"No, you don't get it," Ryan sighed. "I just don't want her to know yet, okay? She's probably having a good time right now, I don't want to ruin it."

In reality, Ryan simply didn't want Chloe to know he had cancer. The others would be treating him like he was made of blown glass as it was, he didn't want his sister constantly worried for his health every minute of the day. He knew that she would take it much harder than the other kids, especially when she found out the full depth of this particular type of cancer that he had lodged in his back.

Speak of the Devil, at that moment they heard the door open and Chloe returned with May-Li. Soon enough, she entered the kitchen, seeing the cluster of people in there.

"Hey, what's going on?" she greeted brightly, before she sensed the atmosphere of the room and saw the expressions on everyone's faces.

"Chloe, Ryan has-" Kazima started, before said boy cut her off.

"It doesn't matter," Ryan interrupted, shaking his head. "You're better off not knowing."

"What?" Chloe asked. "Ryan, what have you done, or what do you have? How would I be better off not knowing?"

"I don't want you to worry," Ryan sighed wearily, as he finally mustered up the strength to stand up, using his cane for support. He really wanted to leave the situation now, and the stairs wouldn't stop him.

"Worry?" Chloe repeated. "Look, Ryan, you need to tell me what's going on!" She began tailing him as he made his way to the door. "Whatever it is, I'm gonna be a part of this-"

"No you're not!" Ryan retorted, stopping just as he reached the door, adrenaline temporarily erasing the need for the assistance of his cane to stand up without wobbling. Nonetheless, he gripped onto it tightly. "You don't have to be a part of this, Chloe, and I don't think I want you to be!"

His tone of voice took Chloe and everyone else in the room aback. Ryan rarely raised his voice, let alone showed such full-on, raw emotion such as this.

"You don't need this," Ryan went on, opening the door and placing the end of his cane on the floor as his calves became weaker. He turned his gaze to the doorway directly in front of him, and let out a final statement: "You don't need me."

With that, Ryan left, slamming the door behind him, leaving a shocked and confused roomful of people behind.

 **Okay ... don't grab your pitchforks and flaming torches just yet ... I know it looks bad now, but I swear on my life, this story won't end in Ryan dying. Mostly because I've already done it twice and the gimmick will be getting old by now, so to settle your nerves, Ryan will not die in this. You have my word.**

 **Some of you may have noticed that I deleted Falling Darkness, the 'teaser' for this. The reason for that is because that tiny little thing was meant to be a teaser for this fic, but since then, I've changed the idea so that no longer fits, hence the deletion.**

 **Also, bonus points to anyone who gets the Steven Universe reference(s) in the last few lines.**


	2. The Past is Fate in Warning

**forgot to say this last chapter, but major thanks to Dark Heart 945 for designing the cover for this book, and for coming up with the title for this chapter.**

 **Just to clarify, this takes place between 4b and 5a, hence why Bailey and Mo are still here but Carmen and Tee aren't. Harry will most likely make a future appearance though, so be on the lookout for that.**

Never before had Ryan severely regretted having a room that required a small set of stairs in order to reach. The stairs from the ground floor to the first floor of the house had been tedious enough, but at this point, the very sight of stairs made his head spin. He wondered if this was how Chloe felt whenever she came across a set of stairs.

He settled for slumping down at the foot of said stairs, his fingers wrapped loosely around the cane that he resented himself for having to rely on. The strong painkillers he'd been administered in hospital were just starting to wear off, meaning that standing was even more of an effort than before.

No one tried to follow him up, thank goodness. Most likely, they'd figured that he needed his space. It was just as well, as if anyone realised that he was too weak to even get up a set of three steps, he would inevitably be the butt of more than a few jokes.

This thought sent a moderate current of energy through his body, which gave him the strength to stand, though he had to use his hands to practically climb up his cane. He climbed the last few steps to his room, wincing on each one, before he finally made it and went inside his room.

He slumped down on his bed, the pain now more pronounced due to the meagre activity, pulsing in steady waves from his back down his legs. The pain stopped at his calves, however, as by now he had lost the majority of sensation in his ankles. He wasn't looking forward to the time when he wouldn't be able to stand, let alone walk, with or without the cane.

 _Basically paralysis._

This thought caused Ryan's heart to sink until it sat like a hard, heavy rock ( _Like a tumour_ ) in his stomach. He glanced at himself in his mirror, and while he didn't look frail or sickly ( _Yet)_ as was characteristic of cancer patients, his face was a few shades paler than usual, most likely from the shock of the diagnosis.

After what seemed like hours, a knock on his door finally sounded.

"Come in," he said flatly, not really knowing who to expect. Probably Mike, May-Li or both.

He was right, in a way, as May-Li was standing on the other side, but he didn't expect to see Finn of all people there with her.

"Hey," the short boy greeted shyly, staring intently at Ryan, trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with him. He had caught parts of the serious words down the kitchen shortly before, but he hadn't been able to understand most of it, only that it was bad. Floss's morbid prediction had done nothing to help, and Ryan's harsh words to Chloe had confused him even further. Finn had heard about cancer and what it could do, but he didn't understand why Ryan had gotten angry at his sister for it.

"Hey," Ryan mumbled in return. "What do you need?"

"We should be asking you that," May-Li said. "How are you feeling?"

"Well, my back and my legs are killing me, I can't feel my feet and the stairs are my new worst enemy," Ryan said bluntly.

"Ohh," May-Li sighed in sympathy. "I'll go get you some more painkillers, yeah?" Without waiting for an answer, she left the room, leaving Ryan and Finn alone.

"Sit down, mate," Ryan said, patting the space on his bed next to him. Finn sauntered in and sat down, unsure of what to say or whether he should bring up Ryan's cancer or not. He had planned to ask him why he had gotten angry at Chloe, but that was before seeing him and his current mood.

Finally, Finn settled for, "How are you feeling?"

"May-Li just asked that."

"No, I mean, how are you _feeling_?"

Ryan gave him an odd look for a few seconds, raising one eyebrow in perplexity, before he understood what Finn meant and he answered with, "Don't know. Everything, really."

"'Everything'?" Finn repeated, cocking his head. It was his turn to give the funny look now.

"It's hard to explain," Ryan replied. "Part of me wants to scream, part of me wants to punch something, part of me wants to cry and part of me wants to lie in bed and never get up again."

He didn't know why he was suddenly being so frank and open with people, especially Finn. Perhaps the cancer diagnosis and the myriad of his emotions had affected his tendency to not open up.

"Is that why you shouted at Chloe?" Finn asked, seeing the opportunity to broach the elephant in the room. "She only wanted to know what was wrong with you."

"She's better off not knowing," Ryan said.

"How?"

"I don't want her to worry about me."

"Then why did you tell all of us?"

"Because you were all there when I started screaming this morning, so I couldn't pretend nothing was wrong," Ryan explained, just as May-Li returned with a glass of water and some Codeine* pills.

"What's this about?" she asked, making herself known. "Is this about not telling Chloe?"

"He needs to tell her," Finn insisted.

"I agree," May-Li said. "She's gonna find out eventually, Ryan. Best she hears it from you."

Ryan washed down the Codeine with the water, before saying, "It doesn't matter how she finds out, she's gonna take it hard either way. I know what it's like to have a relative with cancer, and I don't want that for her."

May-Li's expression turned sympathetic, while Finn's eyes widened. "What do you mean? You have a relative with cancer?!"

"Had," Ryan corrected, as a dark shadow passed over his expression. "When I was 3, not long after Chloe was born, my dad ... he was diagnosed with cancer. He had to spend forever in hospital, having every treatment in the book, only it was so aggressive it just kept spreading. I think it was around that time when my mum started drinking, because she couldn't cope with having to look after a baby, a toddler and a sick husband."

Finn and May-Li both looked stricken at this story. May-Li already knew everything that Ryan was telling her and Finn, but that didn't make it any easier to hear, and Finn of course was finding all this out for the first time.

"I think you can guess what happened," Ryan finished, closing his eyes and squeezing his cane as he fought back the long-ago but luridly vivid memories of the bald man writhing in agony on the hospital bed, the sinister-looking drip bag leaking its toxicity into his blood ...

Little Ryan had been far too young to understand what he was seeing, he just knew it was bad, and scary. So very scary. He began to think that nothing would scare him as much as that had ... until his fifth birthday. Fighting back even more excruciating memories, he peeled his eyes open to look at May-Li and Finn again, their expressions harder to look at than the sun.

"The thing is, his cancer was the same one that I have now."

* * *

"What's going on?!" Chloe demanded to know, not long after Ryan had stormed away. "What has he done? What does he have? Why doesn't he want me to know?"

The other DG residents, still reeling from the jarring news, glanced at each other, debating on whether to drop the bombshell or not. On the one hand, Chloe had just as much right to know as they did, but on the other, was it really their bombshell to drop? With Ryan keeping something as big and significant as this literally inside of him, ultimately it was his choice who knew about his condition and who didn't.

"We can't say," Mo said in the end. "It's his right to tell you if he wants to."

"You can't hide it from me!" Chloe persisted. "I know something's wrong, for crying out loud, he was using a cane!"

"I'll take you upstairs if you want to pry it out of him," Bailey offered.

"Bailey, no," Kazima said sternly.

"Please," Chloe pleaded.

Bailey sighed, before going around the table to follow Chloe to the foot of the stairs.

 ***Codeine is the strongest painkiller that you can buy over the counter. When it comes to something like spinal cancer, you need something stronger than paracetamol or ibuprofen.**


	3. Your Sudden Death Answer

What would you say to someone who had just told you that their father had died from cancer and now they had that selfsame cancer?

Finn certainly didn't know the answer to that question, so naturally he didn't say a word. Instead, he reached out and wrapped his chubby arms around the sick teen next to him, keeping his grip near the top so that he didn't hurt his back.

May-Li squeezed Ryan's shoulder briefly and stood up, making to leave. "No matter what happens, Ryan, we're all gonna be here for you - whether you like it or not," she told him, adding a slight stern edge to her last point,

Ryan glanced up at her and saw the glint in her eyes. With a deep sigh of resignation, he said, "Fine, you can tell her I'm sick, but not the bit about Dad. She really is better off without that hanging over her head."

May-Li nodded, and left the room.

"Can't you at least give me a clue?" Chloe complained, as she and Bailey travelled down the landing.

"Fine," Bailey said. "He hasn't done anything bad this time."

"That's a first," Chloe muttered, just as the door to Ryan's room opened and May-Li walked out.

"Ah, just the person I was looking for," she greeted, with a hint of surprise at finding Chloe so early.

"Is he finally going to tell me what's going on?" Chloe huffed, folding her arms.

"He's given me permission to tell you," May-Li explained.

"What, so he can't even tell me himself, and yet he told everyone else?!" Chloe yelled. "Is he really that much of a-"

"Look, do you want to find out or not?" Bailey interrupted, leaning on the wall and pressing a hand to his face in exasperation. He himself wasn't even sure how he felt about his rival's potentially fatal sickness. Sure, he and Ryan had never been best buds, but that didn't mean he wanted him _dead._

"Yeah," she grumbled. "What's happening with him then?"

May-Li swallowed and looked down briefly. "You might want to prepare yourself for this."

"I'm ready, please, just tell me," Chloe pleaded.

"There's no easy way to say it, so I guess I'll just say it," May-Li sighed. "Chloe ... Ryan has cancer."

All at once, Chloe understood why Ryan had been so determined to keep this from her. She herself wasn't sure whether she'd really wanted to know anymore. She'd suspected he'd been developing a certain health condition ever since she'd noticed his weakness and the discernible winces of pain that he'd done a rather poor job of hiding, but she definitely hadn't expected it to be _that._

She felt her eyes widening and her jaw dropping, while her larynx stopped functioning. She was stunned, unable to vocally react at all.

Nonetheless, May-Li continued anyway. "Not long after you left, he collapsed in the living room, screaming his head off, complaining that his back hurt. Like someone had dropped an anchor on him, he said. We had to get him to the hospital ASAP. When they examined him, they found a Stage 3 tumour in his spine."

May-Li opted to stop at that point, noticing how Chloe's face had adopted a rather unpleasant pallor upon finally receiving the news about her brother's affliction.

"Do you want to go back downstairs?" Bailey asked.

This finally elicited a response from Chloe in the form of a sharp shake of the head, as though she was shaking herself out of a trance. "No, I-I need to talk to him, right now."

Specifically, she needed to apologise to him. She'd noticed how he'd found standing up and walking difficult over the past fortnight, and all she had done was make quips and send him death glares whenever he made his quintessential snarky comments, instead of telling Mike and May-Li that there was something wrong that could've been very serious - and it had been. If only she'd spoken up, they could've caught this sooner.

May-Li turned around, climbed the short flight of steps to Ryan's room and entered, noting with worry at how his posture had become considerably more slumped in her few minutes of absence. "She wants to talk to you."

"Ugh," Ryan groaned. "You know I hate those steps."

"Shouldn't the Codeine have worked by now?"

"Yeah, but it makes me tired."

"Do you want to lean on me?" Finn suggested, standing up and offering his arm.

"No thanks, mate," Ryan declined, pushing himself up using his cane. "I'd like to keep my dignity for as long as possible."

Not that he had much dignity left anyway. He felt six times his age having to use a cane. A mental image of him having to be helped up the stairs at a cringeworthily slow pace flashed in his head, causing a wave of fresh humiliation to wash over him and his face to heat up slightly.

It gave him the motivation to make his way over to the door and step outside his room, turning to see Chloe looking at him as though he were a ticking time bomb that would implode at any given moment.

"I'm here," he muttered, leaning hard on the wall. He would've liked to sit down, but he was scared that he wouldn't be able to stand up again if he did. May-Li, Finn and Bailey had all cleared off to give them their space, so there was no one to help him up. "What is there to say though?"

"I'm sorry about the last two weeks," Chloe said meekly.

"What on Earth could you possibly have to be sorry about?" Ryan asked. "It's not your fault I have cancer."

"I noticed you found walking hard."

"I'm still not gonna borrow your wheelchair."

"It's not that. I noticed you getting sick, and I didn't say anything," Chloe admitted. "I should've said something."

"It doesn't matter, it would've happened either way," Ryan insisted. "Blaming yourself isn't gonna make it any better."

"Didn't stop you," Chloe muttered under her breath.

"What?"

"You've always blamed yourself for what happened to me," Chloe pointed out.

"That's different," Ryan protested. "Mum lied to me and you and everyone, saying that I was to blame. No one's blaming you for me being sick - except you."

With that, Ryan made his way past her and down the stairs, taking it steady. He might as well make the most out of the few hours of relief he got before the Codeine wore off.

"Hey," May-Li greeted, when he'd arrived at the foot of the stairs. "How'd she take it?"

"Not great," Ryan said, before sighing. "She blames herself for me having cancer because apparently she noticed my symptoms and didn't tell you."

May-Li's eyes widened, before immediately climbing the stairs to meet with the distraught girl. She'd seen the effects of long-term self-blame in Ryan himself, and therefore she needed to shut down those unwarranted feelings as soon as possible in Chloe - and she would need help getting back down the stairs.

It occurred to May-Li that soon enough, Chloe wouldn't be the only child in need of help traversing the staircase.

* * *

The following day, a letter arrived in the post from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, saying that they'd been informed of Ryan's case via Dr Gareth and Dr Preston and were willing to grant him any wish.

"I wish to not have cancer," Ryan had said instantly, once he was informed about the opportunity over the lunch table.

"You know they can't do that," Mike sighed. "But you don't have to use it instantly, you can save it."

"Well in that case, nothing," Ryan huffed. "I don't get why these charities bother asking what you want instead of working to treat your sickness. I mean, it's a nice gesture, sure, but it's like asking a Death Row inmate where he wants to have his last meal. It's just a reminder of my own mortality."

"So, you think this _is_ going to be your 'last meal'?" Jody responded, narrowing her eyes. "You think you're gonna die?"

"He's not going to die!" Billie protested.

"He could," Joseph piped up, "I've read about it - astrocytoma is really horrible. If you don't have it treated, you _will_ die."

"Thank you, Joseph," Mike intervened. "But in all seriousness Ryan, you need to decide what treatment plan you're gonna go for. That tumour in your back isn't gonna wait for you to decide."

It was something that Ryan was acutely aware of. By this point, he was leaning on the Codeine almost as much as he was leaning on the cane, which was saying something. After lunch, he went straight to the office to grab a pen and a piece of paper - normally he'd go up to his room to get these things, but he was trying to avoid using the stairs unless absolutely necessary - and went to the quiet room. He was making a decision that would literally determine his quality of life for the rest of his life, and he couldn't make it lightly.

He scribbled _Astrocytoma_ at the top of the page.

* * *

By the time he'd finished his flow chart, he was somehow even more indecisive than before. If he had radiotherapy and it didn't work, he _would_ face chemotherapy, and if _that_ didn't work, only then would he be granted surgery to remove part of the tumour - and then more chemo to remove the rest of it.

And there was only a small chance _that_ would work!

At this rate, he'd be a terminal patient!

Ryan let out a yell of frustration and thumped his cane on the floor. He felt like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum, but it was hard for him to act any other way when he had a Stage 3 anaplastic astrocytoma growing inside of him, leeching off his nutrients like a parasitic fungus, and the only way to stop it was to essentially poison himself.

The ultimatum was infuriating.


	4. What Lies Tangled

It was nature's call that rudely woke Ryan up - for the third time that night. Heaving himself onto his side, he saw that the small clock on his bedside table read 3:57. He'd only managed to get a couple of hours more since the last time his bladder had woken him up.

That was another sad side-effect of spinal cord compression - bladder and bowel changes, which meant his bladder felt like it was full even when it wasn't. Still, he tried to console himself, it was better than being incontinent.

After the increasingly arduous task of going to the bathroom to relieve himself had been accomplished, he realised that he was actually extremely thirsty. It wasn't surprising, as he'd more or less been forced to drain himself completely dry.

The problem - the only way to get drinkable water was to go _down the stairs_ to the kitchen.

Ryan hadn't cried since being diagnosed, but at that moment, he came close to letting out tears of frustration.

He stayed sitting in the bathroom for a while, weighing up his options. He could go back to bed and try and get back to sleep in spite of the cottonmouth, then get someone to get him water in the morning. Most of them were unlikely to say no - he did have cancer, after all, and so-called "cancer perks" were no secret - but he wanted to show that he could still do such simple tasks as getting himself a drink.

Alternatively, he could go downstairs, have a drink and some Codeine since his spine was complaining again, and try and get back up, or he could do all those things and just crash on the sofa instead of getting back up.

In the end, he plumped for the second option, figuring that getting up the stairs would be easier once the Codeine kicked in. He could also use the time to ponder over treatments again.

Several minutes later saw him sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of water next to him and his flow chart in front of him on the table. A frown creased his forehead as he stared intently at it as if he expected the markings to shift by themselves.

He was so deep in thought that he didn't hear someone else come in. He probably wouldn't have heard anyway - wheels were quieter than footsteps on the kitchen tiles.

That was until the chart was unceremoniously snatched away from in front of his eyes.

"Hey!" he protested, his head snapping up to meet his offender.

Chloe ignored his indignation and instead scanned the flow chart with narrowed eyes. "What is this?"

"None of your business," Ryan muttered, trying to grab it back, but she held it out of his reach. "Why are you even up at 4 in the morning?"

"Why are _you?"_ Chloe countered.

"I was thirsty," he said simply, deciding not to mention his cancer's involvement in that. "You?"

"I heard you coming downstairs, thought I'd investigate," Chloe replied, equally as curtly. Ryan wasn't leaving it there, however.

"How'd you know it was me?" he continued, his gaze pricking her. "And I'm not that loud, am I?"

"You're the only one here who walks like they've got three legs," Chloe started, ignoring Ryan's expression darkening and his fist clenching around his cane, "and no, you're not that loud, but I have to keep waking myself up so I can change my sleeping position."

Ryan raised an eyebrow. Despite the paraparetic effects of his cancer, he still didn't claim to be an expert in all things paraplegic. Thoughts suddenly occurred to him that before long, he would _have_ to become an expert out of necessity - thoughts that he tried to push out of his mind.

Chloe, meanwhile, had turned her attention back to his flow chart. "What is this?" she asked again.

"Potential treatment plan," Ryan explained. "I thought that maybe writing it all down would help me decide better."

"And has it?"

"Not really."

"Well, what does all this mean?" she asked. "'Radiotherapy'? 'Works' or 'doesn't work'?"

"Basically, the first option they gave me is to have radiation therapy, but there's only a small chance it will work," Ryan explained. "If it doesn't work, I'll have to have chemo."

"The kind that makes you lose your hair?" Chloe asked. A nod, then she shrugged. "It'll grow back."

Ryan sighed deeply in frustration, running his fingers through his hair (that, as Chloe had pointed out, he would very likely lose), applying pressure to the throbbing points. He really wasn't in the mood to go through this again. Maybe doing this at 4 a.m. hadn't been the best idea - lack of sleep, thirst and stress were an insufferable combination, making him feel like someone was holding an axe at the crown of his head. (It didn't help that the headache was also inducing a niggling thought that the cancer had somehow managed to spread all the way up his spinal cord to his brain overnight, even though he knew that even the most aggressive cancer wouldn't spread that far in the space of several hours.)

Her brother's silence and motion eventually caught Chloe onto the fact that he didn't want to talk about the effects of chemotherapy. "Do you know what you want to spend your wish on?" she asked, changing the subject slightly.

Ryan shrugged his shoulders.

"No idea at all?"

"Nope," Ryan said. "Even if I did know, I'll probably save it for if I become terminal."

"You won't be terminal, Ryan," Chloe said, before her expression and tone changed. "Well, unless you spend so long choosing that you die before you decide."

"Shut up," Ryan said sharply, his fuse considerably shorter than it once had been, and it was getting shorter every time his sister spoke so casually of his illness, as if it was a minor setback like a forecast rainstorm. He couldn't believe that he'd initially wanted to hide his cancer from her for fear of her taking it hard. "Do you _really_ want to know what I'd spend my wish on?"

Chloe blinked in surprise, given that he'd said less than a minute before that he didn't know what he would wish for. Nonetheless, she was curious, so she said, "Sure, what?"

"I want to see Mum again."

Chloe didn't know what she was expecting, but it definitely hadn't been that. She thought that after what their mother had done to her and Ryan, he would be quite content with never having to talk to, see or think about her again. The fact that he would actually wish to see her seemed to go against everything she knew about her brother - which, admittedly, wasn't that much. "W-why-"

"She pinned the blame on me for something I would never dream of doing," Ryan started, as a storm started to brew behind his eyes. "She neglected us to go shopping and then when it went wrong, she threw me under the bus to save herself - _on my birthday,_ no less," he growled, spitting out the words like they were venom. "And it wasn't the first time either, I can hardly remember a night where she wasn't out drinking or entertaining ..." Ryan opted to cut himself off there, deciding that his 12-year-old sister didn't need to know _those_ details. He wasn't even meant to know them himself - he'd only found out when he'd sneaked into the office to read his own file not long before coming to Ashdene Ridge. It was there that he'd found out about his father's cancer and the meaning of his mother's absences - though in the file, it said that she'd managed to turn away from that several months before Chloe's accident.

"Entertaining ..." Chloe prompted.

"And guess who paid the price for all of that?" Ryan continued, ignoring the loose end she'd just presented. _"We did._ You're in a wheelchair and I carried a false blame around with me for nearly 10 years. Do you know what it's like to be a little kid, taken away from everything you've ever known, and be dumped somewhere full of strangers that all treated you like scum?"

"Well at least you stopped carrying it around!" Chloe retorted. "It doesn't matter whose fault it was, it doesn't change the fact that I've had to grow up with _this!"_ She aggressively jerked her right wheel. "I didn't understand why I couldn't get up and run around like all the other kids, or why I had to go to the doctor so many times, and I'll still have to live with this for the rest of my life, and everything that comes with it!"

Her undiluted outburst actually caused Ryan to flinch under his sister's gaze. It occurred to him that she had probably felt the same way when he'd raised his voice at her previously - only unlike her back then, he probably deserved it. For a few seconds, he was at a loss of how to respond to that - before he remembered what had led up to it.

"And that's just it," he said. "That's why I want to see Mum again. She never got her just desserts for what she did to me and you. She even had the nerve to abandon you and run off to America, without even bothering to keep in touch - you said so yourself. I just feel the need to get everything out at her, rip her a new one - in case I'll never get that chance again."

Chloe's hard face relaxed and she looked down briefly, as if guilty. "About that ... we kept in touch for a bit, I sent her letters just like I sent to you, but the letter I sent her the week we met up ... I told her everything. I knew that she'd lied to me and everyone and framed you for my accident. After that, I never got any more letters back."

Ryan reached across the table and found her hand in her lap, squeezing it slightly awkwardly. To his surprise, Chloe responded by wheeling around the table and wrapping her arms around his neck. It was, again, an awkward gesture, but one that symbolised trying to hold on to the only person you felt you had left in the world. Ryan started to lift his arms to hug her back, but a sudden strong ache in his shoulder caused him to wince and he had to push her away gently.

"What's wrong?" Chloe asked, seeing Ryan pull down the side of the neck of his pyjama top until his shoulder was exposed. Yet again, he was worrying that his cancer had metastasised, and the painful red blemish that he saw did nothing to help.

Chloe craned her neck to get a better look, and she instantly stopped looking worried. "Oh, don't worry about that, that's just a pressure sore. You probably slept on that shoulder for too long."

Ryan frowned.

"I know all about pressure sores," Chloe went on. "I used to get them all the time. Sometimes I still do, but now I wake myself up every few hours so I can turn myself over."

Glancing again at the pressure sore on his shoulder, Ryan released his pyjama top, folded his arms on the table and laid his head on them, feeling another harsh new reality settle on his shoulders like a heavy cloak. "I'm sorry, I guess I shouldn't complain. Like you said, you've been living like this for years, I've only been like this for a few days."

"You get used to it," Chloe shrugged. "Besides, even if I've had this for years, at least I know it's not gonna kill me."

But Ryan wasn't finished yet. "Maybe I deserve this, getting a taste of what you have to live with every day. I mean, whether I pushed you or not, it's still kind of my fault."

"What happened to Mum getting her 'just desserts'?" Chloe questioned. "Seriously Ryan, you need to stop being so indecisive. Just, cut it out."

Ryan blinked, sitting bolt upright.

 _Cut it out?_

"Give me that," he ordered, holding his hand out so she could give him his flow chart back, which she had held onto the entire time.

She did so, slowly and with a frown, perplexed at his sudden change in mood. He retrieved his pen from the table top and laid the flow chart flat on the table. Ignoring the whole tree of possible treatments he'd completed the previous afternoon, he drew another arrow stemming from the _Astrocytoma_ title and scrawled _Complete surgery_ underneath the arrow head. He knew there was only a small chance that Dr Gareth would allow him to have the surgery, so he added two branches - _allow_ and _don't allow._ If they didn't allow it, he would just go the route he had originally forseen - and wanted to avoid. If, by some miracle, they allowed the surgery, it would work - he'd be cancer free and this would end.

He wouldn't go the same route his father had.

* * *

"Are you sure?" Mike asked him the next morning, when Ryan announced his decision to him.

"No, I'm not sure, that's why I said I was sure," Ryan said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

Mike huffed slightly. "They probably wouldn't let you have it anyway. You see, Ryan, doctors have to swear an oath to never do anything that would harm a patient."

"They shouldn't give me chemo either then," Ryan scoffed. "It does more harm than good and it might not even do good anyway."

"Well, let's be honest, Ryan, paralysis would probably be more harmful than losing your hair and making you sick and tired, literally. It won't do permanent damage, unlike this surgery," Mike said.

"It's been done before."

Ryan and Mike turned to see Joseph standing conspicuously outside the office door, looking thoroughly embarrassed about being caught eavesdropping. "I-I'm sorry, I ... couldn't help overhearing."

"Joseph!" Mike admonished. "This is a private matter."

"No, let him say what he has to say," Ryan insisted, eager for information that would help his case. "Come on Joseph, tell us, when has it been done before?"

"Well, it hasn't _exactly_ been done before," Joseph admitted, looking down slightly, "but ... there's this cancer called osteosarcoma, which is when you have a tumour growing on a bone. Sometimes, the only way they can save you is by amputation if it's a limb, or even more than one if it's really bad. So looking at it that way, having surgery that would paralyse you to cure your cancer wouldn't be that different. I mean, losing a limb is technically harmful, but it would save your life."

If Ryan had the strength, he could've stood up and hugged Joseph. Sure, the boy's tendency to spout information could be annoying at the best of times, but he was smart, and Ryan couldn't fault that now.

Mike looked like he didn't know what to think. His gaze kept flicking between the two boys, his brain trying to form words but none reaching his lips. Finally, he let out a deep sigh. "I'll call your oncologist."

* * *

Thankfully, Dr Gareth had a free space for that day and could fit them in, so six hours later saw them sitting in the waiting room, surrounded by a few other patients all at varying stages of cancer, some bald-headed, some with oxygen tanks, some with mobility devices like him and some even with prosthetic limbs. Ryan couldn't help but smirk internally at the thought that people would notice Mike's lack of hair and assume that _he_ was the one with cancer.

It seemed like Dr Gareth didn't specialise in paediatric cases, as the vast majority of their company had to be at least 50 or 60. There was only one other teenage patient in the room, slumped in a chair in the corner. He looked to be about a year or two older than Ryan, with thin, dark hair just starting to grow back. The expression on his face was a weary scowl, as if he'd been here countless times before.

Looking idly around the room, his eyes locked with Ryan's briefly.

A tingle shot up Ryan's spine.

And it wasn't the astrocytoma.

 **Some of you will probabaly recognise osteosarcoma as the type of cancer that Gus Waters had in _The Fault in Our Stars,_ and I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't inspired at least a little bit by that. For those of you who don't like it, don't worry, it won't be a carbon copy.**

 **This story is also on Wattpad under the same name, and on this chapter over there I've added an image of what his flow chart would look like, if you need help visualising it.**


	5. Expiation

The boy flicked his eyebrows up briefly, seemingly surprised by the new arrival. His dark eyes bored into Ryan as if trying to figure him out, like Ryan himself had done countless times before. More likely, he was trying to figure out what type of cancer he had. The cane probably gave him a clue.

The door opened and Dr Gareth's face appeared. "Finley Albaston?"

The healthy-looking woman next to the boy stood up instantly, but the boy himself - Finley - cast his gaze downward, as if trying to avoid being noticed. Naturally, it didn't work, as the woman huffed sternly at him. With a sigh of resignation, Finley stood up and trudged into the office, closing the door behind him.

"New friend?" Mike asked, having noticed their silent interactions.

Ryan just rolled his eyes in response, deciding to follow Finley's example and try and figured out everyone's cancers. Well, for starters, those with prosthetic limbs probably had osteosarcoma, like Joseph had mentioned. Oxygen tanks probably translated to lung cancer. Mobility devices, those were harder to deduct from. Some probably did have cancers of the central nervous system like him, but those clearly in the later stages were probably just too weak to walk.

In fact, when compared to every other patient - Finley included - Ryan felt as healthy as a spry young athlete. He wasn't looking forward to him looking like he was at death's door.

That, he reminded himself, was why he wanted this surgery - to stop the vicious cycle of treatments, remission and relapse before it started. He wasn't stupid, he knew that paralysis came with its own set of problems, but he would rather live at least sixty more years with those problems than one more year of rapidly deteriorating health that ended in a flatlining heart monitor.

"Did I ever tell you about my uncle Declan?" Mike asked again, suddenly.

Ryan frowned at him, before shaking his head.

"Well, my uncle Declan, my cousin Brian, my grandfather and his brother," Mike listed, "they all died of the same thing."

"What was it?" Ryan asked, intrigued and slightly suspicious.

"Kidney cancer," Mike admitted, rather sheepishly.

"Oh," Ryan said shortly. "Sorry."

"A few years ago, I started getting these pains in my side and abdomen, and I thought that I had gotten it too, but I was too scared to do anything about it," Mike went on. "It was a bit cowardly, really. I just wanted to make the most out of what little time I thought I had left, rather than go through everything my relatives had. In the end, it was Gina who knocked some sense into me - you won't have met her, she worked here before May-Li - and I went to the hospital to get it checked."

"And was it kidney cancer?" Ryan asked.

"No," Mike said. "It was only a kidney stone. It's not dangerous, but very painful, and I recovered not long after. Look Ryan, I'm telling you this because when I thought I had the same thing as what my relatives had, I more or less just resigned myself to my fate, because I was too scared to do anything about it, so I just want to say that it's good that you want to do something to stop yourself going through what your father did, even if I'm not totally in love with the way you want to go about it."

Ryan gave the man a small smile in response, the doubt still bubbling in his stomach settled a little with Mike's blessing.

After fifteen minutes, the door opened and Finley walked out, along with the woman who Ryan assumed was his mother. "Ryan Reeves?" Dr Gareth's voice called from the office.

As Ryan and Mike made their way towards the door, Finley and his mother passed rather close to them. At that moment, Finley took the opportunity to turn his head and whisper:

"Nervous system."

Ryan blinked in surprise at his deduction, but otherwise pressed on as if he'd heard nothing.

"The tumour spans across three vertebrae," Dr Gareth informed them, the MR image on the desk in front of them. "It's an anaplastic astrocytoma, as you know, and that can make it harder to treat. Fortunately, as it's only Grade 3 as opposed to a Grade 4 glioblastoma, that does make it more manageable. We can surgically remove some of it, but as we told you last time, it's a very stubborn tumour and may not fully detach from the spinal cord. In that event, we would remove as much of it as safely possible and then prescribe radiation to remove the rest of it."

Ryan and Mike nodded in response, though Ryan remained quiet before deciding to speak up. He figured that Dr Gareth would be more likely to listen if Ryan listened to him first.

"If all goes well, you should be cancer free without you having to have chemotherapy, and I know you hate that," Dr Gareth said, giving Ryan a knowing look, "but I have to be honest with you here - I can't promise that it won't recur. There's a chance that we'll be seeing each other again in a few years, or even in ten years, but only time will tell. Do you have any questions about the treatment?"

"Yes," Ryan said immediately, sitting up as straight as possible with his bad back and looking Dr Gareth straight in the eye. "Is there any way you could surgically remove all of it?"

"You asked this last time," Dr Gareth replied, before seeing Ryan's grave expression and adding: "Theoretically, it's possible, only the problem with astrocytomas is not only that they won't fully detach, but that during surgery, it's hard to tell where the tumour tissue ends and the normal spinal cord tissue starts, so the only way to be sure if the tumour was removed completely would be to cut out the entire section of healthy cord it's attached to."

Dr Gareth hid a smirk at the medical preposterousness of such an idea, before looking again at his patient's expression and proceeding to stare at him like he'd turned into a purple alien. "Ryan ... you're not suggesting ..."

Mike gave him an apologetic look from just behind Ryan, who at that moment was wearing his most defiant scowl - the one that meant he believed he was in the right without a shadow of a doubt. "Yeah, I am," Ryan said.

"Why?" Dr Gareth asked, before he could stop himself. "This is ..." he paused to think of a way to put it nicely, "... very _rash._ If we were to do that, you'd be disabled for life, along with a multitude of health problems that won't go away."

"I can deal with that," Ryan shrugged.

"It's all very well saying that but you'll probably change your tune when you're a paraplegic, incontinent and dealing with pain and muscle spasticity," Dr Gareth replied, trying to maintain professional patience.

"How different can it be from when you decide to _chop people's limbs off?"_ Ryan retorted. "You don't seem to have much problem disabling _them_ for life."

Dr Gareth glanced at Mike, who was doing his best to focus on the skeleton diagram pinned up on the board on the wall, keeping his eyes firmly away from the minor confrontation going on right next to him. He sighed, silently counting backwards from ten. "Amputation is a last resort, Ryan," he explained. "When someone is diagnosed with bone cancer, we don't immediately have the affected limb amputated. We only do it if there's no other way to save their life, after every other option has been exhausted."

"What if they wanted it amputated right away because they didn't want it to spread?" Ryan asked.

"There are less drastic ways to stop cancer from spreading," Dr Gareth replied. "Look, Ryan, just tell me why you're so desperate to have this surgery. There are better ways to manage this."

"I know why," Mike spoke up, feeling the need to finally step in. "You see, Doctor, Ryan's father died from the same cancer that he has now, and I think he just wants to reduce the chances of it becoming uncontrollable as much as possible."

Dr Gareth looked a little surprised, before turning to his computer screen and looking up Ryan's medical records and history for clarification. "Yes," he agreed, when he'd found what he was looking for, "I can see that, and I also see why you'd want to increase your chances of surviving. But when deciding how to treat a patient, we have to take into account whether it will do more good than harm - and a surgery like this would, in the eyes of every doctor, nurse and surgeon working today, be viewed as quite the opposite. You would be profoundly disabled for the rest of your life, with zero chance of the effects ever being reversed-"

 _"But I'll live."_

His tone took both Mike and Dr Gareth aback. The way he'd uttered that statement meant that he was deadly serious about this matter and wasn't going to shake from his stance on it no matter what. "I know I'll be a paraplegic and I know I'll be incontinent and I know I'll be dealing with so many other things _but I will live,"_ Ryan repeated, his steely gaze fixed on the oncologist in front of him. "I can live with all that, but I won't live if I die from this because my doctor denied me the treatment that would've saved my life!"

"Ryan!" Mike reprimanded, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. He understood and even admired his determination to get what he wanted, but he felt that his confrontational tone was crossing the line in terms of basic courtesy. "Don't speak like that to doctors!"

Dr Gareth didn't turn a hair at his tone. "If you're really that sure, then I'll speak to the department of neurosurgery about your case. We'll meet again in a few days, Mike can schedule an appointment at the front desk."

"Thank you," Ryan said, completely sincerely, as Mike stood up and made to leave.

Dr Gareth wanted to say, "Just doing my job," as he often did whenever patients thanked him, but this time he couldn't say it as it would feel like lying if he did. While he technically wasn't breaking any rules, Ryan's demands were definitely breaching medical protocols. Instead he said, "You're welcome."

Mike and Ryan stood up and left the room, but while Ryan kept going, Mike stayed behind for a minute. "Thanks for being so patient with him," he muttered to Dr Gareth. "I'm sorry he was so rude."

"It's not the first time I've dealt with stubborn teenage patients," Dr Gareth smiled slightly, thinking of young Finley Albaston. He'd known the boy for over a decade, so dealing with his bouts of stubbornness over the years had been almost like raising his own child. "It's just part of the job. You're a care worker, so you've probably run into some shockers yourself."

"You have no idea," Mike replied, Tracy Beaker coming to the front of his mind. "Thanks again, see you in a few days." With that, he left.

* * *

On the way home, Ryan was silent, staring at his reflection in the car's side mirror, absently fiddling with his cane. His successful persuasion of Dr Gareth had granted him some satisfaction, but there was still a dismal weight on his chest that the satisfaction couldn't lift.

There was another reason why he so badly wanted the paralytic surgery, though he would never admit it to anyone, Mike and Dr Gareth especially. Even though it had been several months since his name was cleared, part of him still felt very guilty for Chloe's fall. Despite how little everyone said he could've done to stop it happening, the feeling was akin to survivor's guilt. He'd always made sure to keep an eye on her and keep her safe ... and he'd failed her. No matter what, a part of him would always feel responsible for her accident, even though his direct action hadn't caused it. A part of him felt like if he deserved to go through what she had.

Besides, if Chloe could do it, so could he.

 **I feel the need to mention that osteosarcoma isn't the only cancer that would possibly require amputation, there's also chondrosarcoma (cancer of the cartilage, which is the connective tissue between the bones) and myosarcoma (muscle cancer).**

 **You'll probably remember what Mike talks about here from the episode Esme. Although it's never clarified exactly what all his relatives died from, I went with kidney cancer because it's more likely to happen** **if you're a man rather than a woman,** **if you're around Mike's age anf if members of your extended family have it too. It also has similar symptoms to kidney stones, so it makes the most sense IMO.**

 **If you don't understand any of the medical mumbo-jumbo in this, feel free to say so in your review or drop me a PM, I'll explain everything in my A/Ns.**


	6. The Spoon Theory

Chloe had deliberately ran over his feet when she found out what he wanted to do.

Not that he could feel it. He just hoped she hadn't broken any bones.

"When are you going to tell the others about your plan to cripple yourself?" she'd spat when she was finished. "Or are you going to fob it off on someone else?"

Ryan rolled his eyes. "One, I'm half-crippled already because of this disease that will _kill me_ unless I do something about it. Sue me for not wanting to die!" he defended. "Two, I don't even know if I'm gonna be allowed to have the surgery anyway. I'll tell them if I get it."

Chloe made a sound of annoyance that set Ryan's teeth on edge and pushed off, yelling back, "Fine, but don't expect any sympathy from me!"

* * *

Sure enough, two more days saw him back at the hospital, though with May-Li accompanying him this time. Mike had told her about Ryan's decision the afternoon they'd come back from their talk with Dr Gareth about it. Unsurprisingly, she had been rather shocked by it, vehemently voicing protestations to the point where a row had broken out between them, with May-Li arguing that they weren't doing their duty of care if they allowed such a thing to happen to a child.

Listening to their squabble from just outside the office, Ryan couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. He knew that many people would oppose his choice, but he didn't want Mike or May-Li to lose their job because of it, especially after the fiasco of several months ago and with Chloe still watching him like a hawk. She was the only one who knew what he'd done, and he suspected that his secret _wasn't_ safe with her. He doubted she would stoop so low as to tell everyone while he was sick, but that would probably change once he was cancer free.

Eventually, May-Li had complied with his wishes when he stepped in and invoked the amputation argument, though she still said she thought he'd regret it later.

Ryan knew he would never regret not dying.

But thanks to May-Li's accidentally writing down the appointment an hour earlier than it actually was, they ended up arriving with plenty of time to spare, so they'd ended up sitting in the hospital café, quietly sipping drinks in an awkward silence.

It was then that Ryan noticed Finley Albaston sitting at a table in the corner, absently running his hand through the stubble on his head. A can of Pepsi was in front of him and he was wearing the same weary scowl as the last time Ryan had seen him. His mother was nowhere to be seen, however, which puzzled Ryan. He hadn't had much experience with good loving parents, but he was pretty sure that any mother whose child had cancer would be unwilling to leave his side for very long.

He excused himself from the table and got up to sit at Finley's table, the older boy looking up to give him a nod in greeting. Before Ryan could say a word, however, Finley got there first.

"You're wondering how I figured out what you had," the boy stated.

Ryan hadn't been wondering right then, but the thought occurred to him again as Finley mentioned it. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"The cane," Finley said. "It wasn't just that you had it, but the way you used it. Most people use it because they don't have much energy, but I saw that you use it because your legs are defective," he said bluntly, causing Ryan to frown. His legs were fine - it was his spine that carried the defect. "Both legs too, so the cancer couldn't have been in one leg, like bone or muscle cancer. If it was one of those things and it had spread from one leg to the other, you'd probably be at death's door by now, and I know you're not because you're too new here. So it had to be in your nervous system, probably the central nervous system to affect such a large area. Am I right?"

Ryan nodded. "I have a Grade 3 astrocytoma, right here in my spine," he explained, swivelling in his seat so he could indicate on his back.

"Exactly," Finley smiled. "Finley Albaston, by the way," he introduced himself, holding out a hand for Ryan to shake.

"Ryan Reeves," Ryan said in return, shaking his hand. "I'm guessing you know Dr Gareth well?"

"How'd you work that out?" Finley joked. "Was it the bald head?"

"No, it was the sickly pale skin," Ryan replied, though even when completely healthy, he himself was even pastier than Finley was in his sick state.

"I've known him for years," Finley told him. "He's nice, but very no-nonsense. Good at his job. What's he planning to do about your little astrocytoma?"

"He suggested I get surgery to remove part of it and radiotherapy for the rest of it, but I want to make sure it's completely gone and will never come back," Ryan explained, trying to explain his thought process before stating his decision. "So I've asked for surgery to remove all of it, spinal cord notwithstanding."

Finley was momentarily silent, no doubt putting his Sherlockian deduction skills to use, before saying, rather coolly, "I see, you want to take the easy way out. Well, there's no way they would allow that. They wouldn't paralyse someone."

"Why _wouldn't_ I want the easy way out?" Ryan asked, sitting up straighter and locking eyes with Finley. "It wouldn't be that different from amputation. Besides, I'd rather be paralysed and live a few more decades than have cancer and die at sixteen."

"Got that right, but some of us don't have the option to cut it out in one fell swoop," Finley said. "I have leukaemia. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia to be exact. Do you know what that is?"

"Blood cancer?"

"Blood and bone marrow cancer," Finley corrected. "I've had it since I was four, I'm nearly seventeen now. Unlike you, leukaemia can't be just surgically removed. I'm guessing you know about chemotherapy?"

"Of course I do," Ryan said. "Makes you feel horrible and may not help a bit, that's why I want to avoid it."

"Same here, but I didn't get a choice," Finley retorted. "Chemo is the only way to treat leukaemia. No surgery, no radiation, nothing. Well, I was really bad a few years ago, so do you know what the good doctor decided to give me?"

Ryan raised an eyebrow.

 _"Arsenic,"_ Finley stated. "He hoped that it would kill the cancer cells as well as healthy cells. I guess it worked, in the long run. I was in remission for two years before-"

"Stop," Ryan interrupted, putting a hand in the air. "Let me get this straight - they're allowed to give you a deadly poison as a way of treating your cancer, but they're not allowed to let me have the surgery I want?"

Finley was silent for a few seconds, his mouth open as if about to retort, but then he closed it again, the fight deflating out of him. "You have a point, I guess. That arsenic was torture, though, worse than the regular chemo. But I survived - I'm still alive, obviously."

It was clear that he was trying to make light of the situation, but his heart wasn't in it. Ryan's eyes fell to his cane, and once again, he resented himself for having to rely on it. He felt that Finley deserved the support it provided far more than he.

When he glanced back at the older boy, he noticed him absently fingering a thin silver chain around his neck that he'd pulled out from under his collar. Ryan wouldn't have paid much attention to this if it hadn't been for the odd charm hanging at the front - a tiny silver spoon in a glass bottle, with a little pickaxe next to it. A label above the bottle said, "In case of emergency, break glass."

"Were you born with that in your mouth?" he joked.

The peevishness on Finley's face in response to his witticism immediately told him that he had made the wrong choice. Ryan was about to apologise, but before he could, Finley's expression changed to a more ponderous look. "I know you're new to the whole cancer thing, but ... do you ever find that your current energy levels are lower than usual, so you can't do everything you want?"

Ryan stared, perplexed. "I can't do everything I used to, but only because I have a lump in my back that's stopping me from standing up and walking for long, not because of lack of energy," he said. "What does that spoon have to do with that anyway?"

Finley sighed. "Fine, I'll just show you what I mean."

Before Ryan could respond, Finley got up and went to the counter just next to the bin, that had plastic cutlery and condiments on it. He returned to their table with a handful of white plastic spoons. Then he looked Ryan in the eyes, said, "Here you go, you have leukaemia," and thrust the spoons into Ryan's hands.

Though he knew that anyone would be perplexed after just being handed a bouquet of spoons - hell, he'd had experience with it - Finley couldn't help but smirk slightly at the Scouse boy's baffled expression. This only perturbed Ryan further - he didn't like being the butt of a joke, or being toyed with. Little did he know just how serious Finley would become.

"Count them," Finley instructed.

"What?"

"You need to know how many spoons you're starting out with." There were twelve.

"Hold onto them," Finley continued. "You want to make sure you don't drop any. Only I can take them away."

Wanting to see where his odd companion was going with this, Ryan nodded.

"Now, let's go through your typical day," Finley said, sounding like a schoolteacher. "Everything you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. The only thing - everything you do will cost you a spoon. When you were healthy, you had an infinite number of spoons. Or almost infinite. Enough so that you never had to worry about running out. Now, you only have twelve spoons to get through the day. Use them wisely."

"Do I go through a day before or after I got sick?"

"After."

"Okay," Ryan said slowly, frowning. He understood now, but he wasn't sure where his day started, especially since his faulty plumbing caused him to have to get up in the night. He supposed that wasn't worth mentioning to Finley. "I wake up, but I don't get out of bed straight away," he started. "Often my back hurts, so I have to take my painkiller. I always have the tablets by my bed," he explained. "Then I get out of bed-"

Finley took away a spoon.

"-and go to the bathroom to have a shower and brush my teeth-"

He took away another spoon.

"-then I get changed-"

And another.

"-and go downstairs to have breakfast."

And another.

"Then I just stay downstairs and watch TV," Ryan said. "Does that cost a spoon?"

"Depends on how long you watch it for. If it's a movie, yes," Finley replied.

"And if it's not?"

"We'll say it is," Finley said, taking away another spoon, causing Ryan to roll his eyes.

"Some things will cost you more than one spoon, by the way," Finley added, as if he'd only just remembered to mention it. "Things like exercising, or going out shopping. Going out for anything, really. One spoon for getting there, another for getting back. And another for doing whatever you went there for."

"Like the hospital?"

"Like the hospital."

This time, Ryan willing handed over three spoons. Now he only had four left.

"And that's discounting smaller things, like trips to the toilet," Finn added.

Ryan groaned audibly. "That's not fair, I have to get up in the night just to go to the bathroom."

"Cancer isn't fair, Ryan," Finley said. "We'll say that all those trips cost you one spoon in total," he decided, taking one. "And we forgot lunch. Sometimes you may skip lunch if you don't feel up to it, but whether you decide to have lunch or not, it'll cost you a spoon," he told him, taking one more. Ryan looked down at the two spoons left in his hands.

"What will you use them for?" Finley asked, sensing Ryan's thought process. "You need one to eat or skip dinner, and one for washing up, and one for changing into your pyjamas and going to bed, but you can only do two out of those three."

Silence.

"I guess I need to mention that you can borrow spoons from tomorrow as well," Finley said, "but then you'll have fewer spoons to get through the day. Just think how hard that would be."

A pause. "Is there any way I can get spoons back?" asked Ryan. "I mean, since I got sick, I try not to go anywhere unless I really have to, even if it's just the next room."

"You could take a nap between coming back from the hospital and dinner," Finley replied.

"I'll do that."

Finley gave a spoon back. "There, now you can finish your day. One for dinner," he took the same spoon, "one for washing, and one for getting to bed." He took away the last two spoons, leaving Ryan speechless and empty handed.

"Do you really go through that every day?" Ryan said in the end, his voice sounding flat and heavy.

Finley shrugged. "Not quite. Some days are better than others, some days I have more spoons than others. I'd say I have about five to thirty spoons a day. Besides, for me, this only applies to when I'm on chemo, or when I'm really sick. Most of the worst days are spent in hospital, so I don't have to use many spoons."

"How many do you have today?"

"My last round of chemo ended last week, so today, I woke up with ... twenty-five spoons," Finley guessed. "I've used about twelve so far, so today has been decent."

Just then, Finley's mother appeared from the adjoining corridor. She walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry I took so long, there was a queue for the toilet," she explained. "New friend?"

"I'm Ryan and I have spinal cancer," Ryan introduced himself dryly.

"Ah," she said, eyeing his cane leaning on the table, before shrugging it off. "I see my son has been explaining the Spoon Theory?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "Why spoons?"

"They're just a visual aid," Finley explained, not telling the full story of how during one evening in 2003, Christine Miserandino and her friend were sitting together in a diner when Christine's friend asked her what it was like to have Lupus. In response, Christine had spontaneously grabbed all the spoons off the tables and used them as a means to explain her very finite energy supply and all the frustration and difficulties that came with it.

Finley's mother checked her wristwatch. "Nearly time for our appointment," she announced. "We'd better go and wait by the office."

Finley stood up and went to put the spoons back where he'd gotten them, but stalled as he walked past Ryan, taking out the spoon and pickaxe pendant. "I've learned to live with an extra spoon in reserve, because I never know when I'll truly need it," he told him, before leaving with his mother.

May-Li took the opportunity to come over and take the seat that Finley had occupied. "A fellow sufferer?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "He's been suffering for longer than me though."

"Poor boy," May-Li murmured. "Sometimes I wonder what it's like, having to live with something like that hanging over your head all the time."

Seizing the opportunity, Ryan got up and went back over to the cutlery counter, counting out twelve spoons and slipping a thirteenth spoon into his pocket. He went back over to a perplexed May-Li, sat down in front of her, looked her in the eye and said, "Here you go, you have cancer," and thrust the spoons into her hands.


	7. A Few Good Men

"What did I tell you?" May-Li said after they came out of the clinic.

"He didn't say 'no'," Ryan said. "He just said that there would be loads of legalities involved in something like this."

"We can't afford a lawyer, Ryan," May-Li sighed. "Not unless you want no allowance whatsoever for the rest of your time in care."

Ryan huffed. Understandably, he was extremely miffed at the turnout of the meeting. Dr Gareth had consulted the neurosurgery department as promised, but as expected, they refused to comply. They had claimed, not without reason, that carrying out the paralytic surgery would be violating the Hippocratic Oath - which, as Dr Gareth had explained, was an oath that everyone working in the medical profession had to take that has them swear to never do harm to a patient. (When Ryan had pointed out that modern medicine made this virtually impossible, citing chemotherapy as an example, Dr Gareth had agreed, saying that there was an ongoing debate as to whether the Hippocratic Oath was outdated.) To go against the Oath to this degree would be medical malpractice and therefore punishable by law. Penalties included jail time and a permanent revoking of one's medical license.

"One junior doctor said that going through with this would be the equivalent of grabbing a piece of paper with the Oath written on it, slicing it to ribbons in a paper shredder, setting the strips on fire and then putting out the flames by urinating on them," Gareth had said, which made them all chuckle a bit in spite of themselves. "It would probably take some very clever manoeuvring of legal loopholes to allow it. Even then, you would probably only get through by the skin of your teeth."

The appointment ended with Dr Gareth prescribing Ryan a course of radiotherapy, with potential partial surgery in the future. The doctor had assured Ryan that chemotherapy would only be a last resort.

"Maybe this is for the best," May-Li said as they stepped into the (thankfully empty) lift to get to the ground floor. "Radiotherapy can be quite effective."

"My dad had that as well as chemo, but look at what happened to him," Ryan scoffed.

"That doesn't mean you'll go the same way," May-Li said. "Besides, they have to do something other than that operation. If we don't do anything, you probably won't last a year."

"The average survival rate for astrocytoma is only 3 to 4 years, even with treatment," Ryan said. "At this rate, I'll probably die before I can drink."

May-Li let out a sigh, but didn't respond further.

The lift stopped a couple of floors above the ground floor and pinged open to let two people in. One of them appeared to be a grown woman, but she was surprisingly short, barely taller than Ryan's cane. What surprised them even more, however, was who those two people were.

"Ryan?"

"Hi, Harry," Ryan greeted, smiling properly for the first time in weeks.

"Wow, it's really you!" Harry exclaimed, his eyes sparkling. He noticed with confusion that his old friend had a cane, but decided to ask him later. "And May-Li too!"

"Hi, great to see you," she replied, going over to give him a hug. "How have you been?"

"It's been great, hasn't it Harry?" Ange smiled. "He's been such a good little boy, we've all been getting along like a house on fire."

"I'm happy for you, mate," Ryan said, clapping Harry on the shoulder and trying to ignore the familiar sting of Harry being happier with his foster family than with him. "What are you here for then?"

"Lou did his back in whilst in the garage last week," Ange explained. "Of course, being a dwarf, it could've been quite serious for him. But he's been having physio for it and the doctors say he's on the mend."

Ryan smiled politely, but he couldn't help but wince slightly at the mention of Lou's back. It only made him think of his own spine, which had started clamouring for attention again. He unconsciously rubbed the spot where the tumour was, despite the fact that too much pressure made it worse and could even make his legs buckle if it was pressed hard enough.

"Have you done your back in too, then?" Harry asked, noticing the gesture. "Is that why you have a walking stick?"

"You could say that," Ryan shrugged, opting to not tell the full truth. It sounded like Lou's injury had left Harry with enough on his plate already. He didn't want to throw his best friend having cancer into the mix, despite the look May-Li was giving him out of the corner of his eye.

The lift pinged open at the ground floor and they all walked out.

"See you around, yeah?" Harry grinned. "I've still got your number. You wanna meet up again sometime?"

"Maybe later," Ryan said. "When I get a bit better."

Harry suddenly threw his arms around Ryan in a parting hug - which turned out to be a very bad idea as his arms landed right on the cancer.

"Oh God," Ryan winced, his face tightening as pain erupted from the tumour, spreading all over his back like molten lava. His legs would've probably collapsed under him if he hadn't staggered backwards to sit on a nearby chair in the corridor.

"Are you alright?!" Harry asked, his eyes wide and deeply apologetic. Just for a second, his friend's hunched posture, coupled with the cane, made him look like a very old man.

"He should be," May-Li assured him. "Just give him a few minutes."

"I'm really sorry, Ryan," Harry said, blinking hard. "I didn't mean to hurt you, I should've known."

"It's not your fault," Ryan grunted, sitting up straighter as the pain subsided.

"However did you do your back in?" Ange asked. "From the look on your face, it must've been a mighty injury."

May-Li looked uneasy at this, as if unsure of what to tell them, but Ryan looked her and Harry solemnly in the eye, looking resigned. "I didn't really do my back in like Lou did," he admitted. "I have a tumour."

"A tumour?!" Harry echoed. "Isn't that ..."

"Yeah."

"Oh, goodness," Ange gasped, clapping a hand to her mouth. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Are you going to die?" Harry blurted out, his voice cracking.

"No, I'm not," Ryan said, trying to smile. "I'm gonna fight and beat this."

This was not a total lie. He would fight it with everything in him, but he didn't know if he could win.

"We can still meet up, right?" Harry asked.

"Of course," Ryan said. "I'll text you later, yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded, before going over and hugging Ryan's shoulders more carefully this time. "I'm always here for you."

"Cheers, mate," Ryan said, before Harry left with Ange, who had her arm around him.

"That's the first time I've ever heard you say that you could beat this," May-Li remarked.

Ryan shrugged. "I couldn't scare him."

"Do you feel up to walking?" she asked.

Ryan nodded, using the back of the chair to push himself up before following May-Li past the main reception and out through the doors.

As they stepped out into the car park, their ears picked up the sound of someone retching unpleasantly nearby. Sure enough, they saw Finley kneeling in front of the bushes, which were now streaked with an ugly puce. His mother knelt at his side, rubbing his back as he heaved.

She looked up and saw them, shaking her head sadly. "It's always like this on chemo days," she said. "I wish I could say it gets better."

Finley turned his head to see who she was talking to, and couldn't help but smirk a little at Ryan's expression.

"Oh, you're still here are you?" he said in mock annoyance. "This is what you're missing out on. Envious?"

"Oh yeah, always wanted to take drugs that make me lose my hair and puke in bushes," Ryan replied, with the same dry sarcasm.

"Hair is overrated," Finley said. "Go bald and you save money on shampoo."

Finley's mother let out a laugh at this, though she still had a look of concern in her eyes. "Do you think you're okay now? That's the third time you've thrown up."

Finley took a few deep breaths before saying, "Yeah, I'm okay. Can I just sit down for a minute?"

"Of course," she said, standing up and pulling her son up with her. Finley steadied himself before walking over to a bench and sitting down. Ryan went over and sat down next to him, while May-Li and his mother left them to talk in private.

"I shouldn't be complaining, really," Finley mused. "I know that as most leukaemia patients go, I'm one of the luckier ones."

"How do you mean?" Ryan frowned.

"I haven't even had a bone marrow transplant, for one," Finley said, "and I've never once been declared terminal."

"So you'll just be going in and out of remission for the rest of your life?"

"Pretty much," Finley said. "Still, I'd rather live a long life like this than die before I get laid."

Ryan let out a laugh. "That's almost what I said to you about the treatment I wanted."

"Are you gonna get it?"

"Probably not," Ryan sighed. "Gareth asked about it and they said no, because they'd get thrown in jail if they did."

"Thought as much," Finley said bluntly. "'Do no harm', as they say."

"Yeah, that's why they poisoned you," Ryan said sarcastically.

"That was different," Finley said. "Yeah, that arsenic sucked, but it wasn't going to permanently disable me."

"You say you've never been terminal, right?"

"Of course."

" _I_ am, most likely," Ryan said. "The average survival rate for astrocytoma is only 3 to 4 years. It's pretty much a death sentence and I don't want to die."

"Fair point, I guess," Finley said. "You could always enter a clinical trial, though there's a chance you could end up with a placebo instead of the real drug. Or if you're really unlucky, the drug will do way more harm than good."

"Have you been in any clinical trials?" Ryan asked.

"No, and thank God for that," Finley replied. "Or rather, thank Gareth for that."

Ryan frowned.

"Just over ten years ago, they developed a new drug to treat leukaemia, called TGN1412, or something," Finley explained. "The clinical trial for that went horribly wrong, six people were hospitalised. I was six at the time, I'd just relapsed, and my dad really wanted to enter me into the trial, but Gareth said it was too risky because I was so young and the regular chemo worked well enough for me. In that sense, I pretty much owe the man my life and what little is left of my health."

"And then he gave you arsenic," Ryan finished, smirking dryly.

"Yeah," Finley sighed. "My dad hit the roof when he found out. He's a lawyer, so he knows a lot of legal ins and outs. He probably would've tried to sue Gareth for not stopping him if-"

"He's a lawyer?" Ryan interrupted, suddenly bolt upright and attentive.

"Yeah," Finley said. "My mum's a teacher, so we're pretty well off. I guess my sisters and I really were born with silver spoons in our mouths, like you said," he said, with a short laugh. "What do your parents do?"

But Ryan wasn't listening properly. "How good a lawyer is your dad?"

"Pretty good," Finley said, frowning slightly. "I've watched a few of his trials. Why do you want to know?"

"Do you know if he could convince a court and judge to not prosecute a bunch of medics for allowing and carrying out a paralytic surgery?"

Finley's flicked his eyebrows up - or rather, the muscles above his eyes where his eyebrows should've been - before smiling a small, conspiratorial smile. "I reckon he could ... if you're willing to pay a few grand."

Ryan groaned. May-Li had been right about the costs. He really would have to give up all his remaining allowance to afford it - as well as taking a chunk out of the others' allowances too.

"Of course, I could always just ask him to put together a contract," Finley said. "Normally, you'd have to pay a few hundred per hour, including consultation time, but I'm his son, so he can't charge me a penny."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slightly crumpled and dog-eared piece of cream coloured card, took out a pen and scribbled something on the back, and gave it to Ryan. "That's his business card, it has his number and the address on it. His firm lets him work from home, so it's my address too. Don't misuse it."

Ryan felt like he could kiss the boy sitting next to him. "Thank you, you're a literal life saver."

"Don't thank me yet," Finley said, getting up. "Thank me when I persuade my father into accepting your case. See you soon, probably." With that, he left.

Walking back to May-Li's car, Ryan took the time to read the business card:

 _The Law Office of_

 _JOSEPH ALBASTON_

 _Attorney and Counselor at Law_

The number and address were listed underneath - he lived quite nearby, it was only a short bus ride away. What made Ryan stop in his tracks, however, was when he turned the card over to see what Finley had written on the back.

A phone number, along with the note:

 _My mobile number. Text soon ;)_


	8. The American Dream

Ryan saved Finley's number to his phone while in the car with May-Li, as well as sending his a cursory text so that Finley had Ryan's number too. He put the business card away as soon as possible, not wanting May-Li to see it and get suspicious.

"About that Spoon Theory," May-Li began, "do you really have to live like that now?"

"Not really," Ryan said. "I'm still in the early stages, so I still have a decent amount of energy. I just have less function."

Though he found that he was just a bit more fatigued with every passing day. Just a bit less willing to get up and do some light chores (Mike and May-Li didn't make him do the heavier chores anymore). Just a bit closer to accepting the help the others offered, or even - Ryan's stomach turned over at the thought - asking for help. He knew that before long, he would have to start rationing his own spoons.

May-Li nodded as if she understood, though that wasn't really the case. While the Spoon Theory was an attempt to explain the finite energy supply of people with disabilities and chronic illnesses to those who didn't have them, she knew that she would never truly understand unless she ever became chronically ill herself. "Still, I can see why you want to avoid chemotherapy. It looks like a real chore."

 _This conversation is a chore,_ Ryan though, with a small eye roll. He wasn't in the mood to talk about his cancer - hell, he rarely _was_ in the mood to talk about it. Like the pity wish from the charity, it was just a reminder of his own mortality.

How would they even contact his mother, anyway? They might track her down, but how would they convince her to come back to Britain for such a short while? Chloe had said their mother already knew that her children knew about her lies, after which she was given the cold shoulder. It seemed as if she was totally determined to leave that part of her life and her children behind, as if it had never happened and they never existed. Ryan wondered briefly how she'd react when they told her he had cancer.

She'd probably either slam the door in their faces or, if she was feeling particularly generous, say, "Surprise, surprise. His father was defective too. The apple never falls far from the tree," before slamming the door in their faces. There was a _minute_ chance that she would have enough good conscience to feel remorseful and regretful enough to come and see him, but that was extremely unlikely. He couldn't bank on that.

Even if they somehow managed to convince her to return to Britain, what then? What would he say to her? How would she react? He wasn't even sure when he wanted her to arrive, though preferably as soon as possible and before any paralytic surgery so he could stand up and talk directly to her face - it'd be harder for her to take him seriously if he was looking up at her from hip level.

Chloe still had deep contempt for him, so it'd be no use asking her. May-Li was sitting right next to him, but he didn't feel comfortable talking to her and Mike about it. They didn't even know what his wish was. The whole subject was making his head hurt, so he decided to try thinking of nothing. Not an easy feat when you were almost terminally ill and had a long, rocky road ahead of you, but made much easier taking into account physical and emotional fatigue.

Ryan woke to May-Li shaking his shoulder, which certainly succeeded in waking him up because it made his back start throbbing again.

"You should have an early night tonight," she suggested. "You need your rest."

"I'm not a baby," Ryan huffed, though the prospect of more sleep really wasn't sounding all that unappealing.

His first radiation appointment was in a week, and on that day, he decided he would try getting through that day according to the hypothetical one in which he only had twelve spoons, whether he found he needed to or not.

* * *

Of course, one of the frustrating things about being a chronically ill "Spoonie" was the issue of constantly being tired throughout the day despite your efforts to conserve your energy, then suddenly being wide awake when given the opportunity to sleep.

That was why Ryan was still lying awake in bed past ten o'clock at night, with most of his housemates either being downstairs or already asleep. The Codeine had soothed his back, but it was his chest that was aching this time, with all the thoughts and worries weighing down on it like a sack full of wet cement.

His mind kept wandering back to his conversations with Finley, though admittedly more on the boy himself. Even bald, Finley Albaston still managed to have a certain charm to his looks. He wasn't typically or classically good-looking, but there was something in his features that made one want to look at him again. He probably would've been a baby face if years of cancer and chemo hadn't given him a look of weary maturity, like a cherub statue that had been weathered down over many years.

His attitude was, to Ryan, even more inexplicable than his looks. Normally, Ryan could suss someone out within one encounter, reading them like a book and deciding whether they were useful to him or not. Key term _, useful to him._ A lifetime of being shunned by the multitude because of both being in care and technically being guilty of GBH (despite never being charged as such) had taught Ryan that friends were something he could only dream of having. The only way for people to do what you wanted was to operate them, and the only way to operate them was to know how they worked without being swayed by emotional attachment. Harry had been the first exception to this since entering the care system, and even he had taken some time to melt Ryan's icy demeanour.

So how was Finley able to catch and draw him in like iron to a magnet with little to no effort? Was it how tough he was to figure out? The boy was smart, so much so that at times, Ryan felt like _he_ was the one being figured out.

Had he talked to his lawyer father about Ryan's case yet? Perhaps not, as the chemo would've taken up quite a few spoons. Finley had had around thirteen spoons when talking to Ryan in the hospital café. Did that leave enough for him to be able to talk at this time?

Only one way to find out.

 _You still there?_

He then left the phone on his bedside table, not expecting a reply. But sure enough, the phone vibrated in response:

 _I only have one spoon left. Make this quick._

Ryan cut straight to the point:

 _Have you talked to your father yet?_

 _Finley: Chemo takes up about 5 or 6 spoons' worth of puking and fatigue, so no._

 _Ryan: Sorry_

 _Finley: Do you even really need him? You could use your wish if you haven't used it already._

Ryan hadn't thought of that, but it was easy to respond to.

 _Ryan: I want to use it for something else._

 _Finley: What?_

 _Ryan: I'd rather not say._

 _Finley: Do you want to go to Disneyland? Because I used mine for that too. Granted, I was 5, but still._

 _Ryan: No, that's not it. It's personal._

 _Finley: You can trust me._

 _Ryan: I just met you today, I haven't figured you out yet._

 _Finley: Figured me out? What are you, an investigative psychologist?_

 _Ryan: Yes I am, that's why I was wearing a fedora and showing off my badge._

 _Finley: Ha ha very funny. But come on, I won't judge._

 _Ryan: Fine. I'm in care because my mum was an alky. I heard she moved to America a few years ago, so I'm wishing to see her again._

 _Finley: Damn. Sorry mate. She doesn't sound like she's worth it though_

 _Ryan: Probably not, but I just want to rip her a new one. Let it all out, tell her exactly how I feel_

 _Finley: That's rough_

 _Ryan: You have no idea_

 _Finley: You're right, I don't. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth like you said. Speaking of which, I'm about to lose my last one_

 _Ryan: Okay._

Finley didn't reply after that. Ryan put the phone on charge, heaved onto his side and eventually slipped off to sleep.


	9. A Bucket List

Mike poked his head out of the office as Ryan walked past. "Ryan, have you got a minute?"

The boy nodded and slunk inside, having a pretty good idea as to what this was about.

"This shouldn't take long," Mike said. "As you know, school starts again in a couple of weeks, and I just want to ask if you feel up to going?"

It was something that Ryan had briefly pondered over before, but hadn't been able to come up with an answer to. Physically, he was still capable of going, despite his increasing fatigue, but most of his classrooms were quite far apart and the thought of making the walk now was nigh impossible. Not to mention people's questions about the cane, and their suspicion over how he'd probably be getting worse instead of better. Ryan wanted to say yes to anything that would bring a sense of normalcy, but cancer had a way of bleeding - or rather, _metastasising -_ into every facet of one's life, making normalcy seem as elusive as a shamrock.

"Not sure," Ryan said in the end. "I mean, I probably can still work, but I don't want everyone knowing I'm sick." _Or that I'm probably going to croak it in a few years,_ he added silently.

"You don't have to tell them," Mike said. "You can just say you're recovering from an injury."

"An injury that gets worse instead of better," Ryan pointed out.

"It probably won't get much worse," May-Li said. "You have the radiation soon, that should help shrink it down."

"I'll give it a week," Ryan said in the end. "See how I do."

"Great." Mike patted his shoulder. "You can go now."

* * *

"You going to school then?" Jody asked him later.

"Most likely," Ryan said. "Not that there's much point to it. I mean, I'm probably going to kick the bucket before I can go to uni," he added in a matter-of-fact way, as if it didn't bother him.

"You don't know that," Tyler said, joining the conversation. "Treatments are better these days, they could cure you."

"Yeah, for a couple of years," Ryan scoffed. "It's going to come back, it's going to spread and I'm going to croak it. Simple as that." He didn't mention the paralytic surgery as he wasn't sure he was going to get it yet. Finley had said he'd talk to his father, but chemo would have him out of commission for a while. He hoped it wouldn't take too long - if he left it long enough, the cancer would spread far enough that the surgery would be redundant.

"If you're so sure you're going to die, you should have a bucket list," Billie suggested, her and Toni going over to sit either side of him.

"Yeah, do all the things you want to do before you die," Toni said. "Go skydiving, run up an escalator the wrong way, jump in a pool full of custard-"

"That's disgusting," Bailey interrupted, pulling a face.

"And I don't think I can even run up an escalator the _right_ way," Ryan added.

"Don't be so boring," Toni chided, playfully punching his arm (causing him to wince as he had a healing pressure sore on his elbow). "There have to be some things you want to do."

The only thing Ryan wanted to do was meet his mother again so he could verbally rip her to shreds. It was something he'd rather keep private for now, even though knowing this place they'd all find out in the end. He wondered briefly if Finley had a bucket list. The older boy had told him that he'd never been declared terminal, so perhaps it was unlikely.

"I'm not dying yet," Ryan said in the end. "I'll think about it later."

The theoretical bucket list was yet another reminder of his mortality that he'd rather not think too much about. He'd rather focus on Finley and the possibility that his father would allow the hospital to save his life, eliminating the need for a bucket list.

He texted Finley later in the day:

 _Have you talked to your father yet?_

The message he received back took him off guard:

 _This is Finley's sister Rosemary. He's on chemo and he told me to tell whoever texted him to go fuck themselves._

So much for that. Ryan set the phone aside and lay back on the bed - and promptly regretted it as pain hit him like a fist, so he turned over onto his stomach and grabbed a random skating magazine, hoping it would take his mind off things.

Again, he promptly regretted his actions. It was the magazine that Owen had sent him almost four years ago, with the message written inside the front cover telling him to keep practising, predicting he would be a skating champion one day.

Ryan wondered if Owen ever thought of him. The time they'd spent together at the skate park. How Owen had been so patient with the eight-year-old boy who had insisted he learn to do tricks so he could be like the cool big boys at school, despite being so uncoordinated that he could barely skate in a straight line. He'd kept at it, somehow, and after years and years of practise (okay, it had only been a few months, but it had felt like much longer at the time), he could join the older boys on the ramp.

Staying with Owen's family had been one of the only high points in his bleak life. He had felt happy and safe, like he belonged. He could see a bright future ahead of him - he'd have friends, parents who loved him, a sibling whom he could have fun with, and no-one need know about the indelible stain that clung to him like a burr to a squirrel's tail.

Of course, it had been too good to last. With Owen's 15th birthday fast approaching, Ryan had been at a loss as to what to gift him - until he had caught Owen gazing at a sleek skateboard in the window of a shop. It was black with blue and silver flames and Ryan rather wanted it for himself, but reasoned that if he could get it for Owen, he'd be so grateful that he'd let them share it.

The only obstacle was the £56 pricetag stuck to its pedestal. There was no way an 11-year old could afford that.

He remembered it so clearly it was as if it were happening all over again - how the night before Owen's birthday, he had lied about staying at a friend's house and instead sneaked into the shop and hidden in a corner behind a box full of deflated footballs, patiently waiting for the shop to close and for everyone to leave. When it happened, he'd come out of hiding, grabbed the skateboard and crawled away - the windows and doors were firmly locked but the vents were not and they were all near enough to the ground that he could escape to the street with little trouble.

However, the next few days were nothing but trouble for him. With the outcry over the stolen skateboard, Ryan didn't feel like owning up and getting himself carted off to jail for the next several years. In a cowardly act, the skateboard stayed in Owen's room and Ryan ran far, far away ...

... or just half a mile up the high street near the house before he was found and brought in for questioning. After his escapade, the skateboard had been found with Owen and all fingers naturally pointed to him being the thief, despite him vehemently denying everything. At that point, Ryan was forced to come clean, and the rest was, as they said, history.

There used to be a time, when Ryan was younger, where he'd believed he was cursed with bad luck, or with a tendency to do bad things. No matter what, bad things always seemed to fall into his path - living with an alcoholic mother, the window incident, getting bullied and mistreated while in care, getting bitten by a dog, getting kicked out of foster families, the file incident ... whenever he used to wallow in self-pity about these things, he was reminded that half of them were the fault of his own stupid self - no, _all_ of them, since he wouldn't be in care if he hadn't pushed Chloe.

When his name was cleared, it was still clear that the bad things he'd done had been his fault and no one else's. The aftermath of the file incident had made him hate himself with a firey vengeance - hate his own vengeful nature and the effect it had on other people, even those he cared about like Harry. The self-loathing was so prevalent that maybe it wasn't a surprise that his own body cells had taken against him.

Ryan wasn't stupid, he knew that there were absolutely no such thing as curses, but doubt started to creep into his mind regarding that. Not necessarily a curse per se, but _something_ inherently bad within him that spread like cancer to the people around him.

Maybe it would be better for everyone if he didn't have the paralytic surgery, or any treatment at all. Maybe he should just let himself be his own undoing, like his whole life had been. He doubted he'd be missed - Mike and May-Li would mourn for a short time, but then they'd move on. The others would dedicate even less time to the grieving process.

Either way, now he'd never be a skating champion.


	10. Raincheck on Hell

The next day, it was Finley that texted first:

 _Sorry I was sick. What's up?_

As it happened, the phone's text alert had abruptly woken Ryan up from an impromptu nap and the first thing that greeted him was pain caused by spasticity in his hips. As such, he was far from in the best mood to answer texts.

 _Oh so now you want to talk to me?_

 _Finley: Mate I was in bed feeling like shit from the chemo. You can't blame me_

 _Ryan: You literally told your sister to tell me to go fuck myself_

On the other side of this conversation, Finley was curled up on the sofa in his living room, watching _Sweeney Todd_ with his 13-year-old sister Rosemary. Unlike him, she took after their mother, with auburn hair and greyish-green eyes that sat behind a pair of small rectangular glasses. She had adopted a role as his makeshift secretary whenever he was on chemo or in hospital, and while the results weren't always what he wanted, they were always worth seeing.

Currently, she was craning her neck to look at his phone screen, rather amused at the exchange going on with the two of them.

"I did as you told me," she said.

Finley sighed. "I didn't mean literally, I just meant you to tell them I couldn't talk to them right then. Now he's pissed off at me."

Rosemary shrugged and turned back to the film. Finley rolled his eyes and replied back:

 _I didn't mean it. Like I said, I was feeling like crap, I wasn't thinking properly. I wanted to say that my father is free tonight so I'll talk to him about your case_

 _Ryan: Don't bother, idk if I want it anymore_

 _Finley: Really? Why?_

 _R: There's no point. I'll be disabled for the rest of my life if I have it and no one would miss me if I didn't have it._

 _F: I would miss you_

 _R: You don't know me. I'm bad_

 _F: I'm getting to know you, you don't seem that bad_

This conversation was almost an echo of the one Ryan had had with Gary not long ago. He decided to try a different approach.

 _R: Let me describe someone to you. Medium height, brown hair and eyes, ambitious, a passionate speaker, published author and loves art. Sounds nice?_

 _F: I want to say yes but I'll guess no_

 _R: Exactly, I've just described Hitler to you. I've done some bad things, I'm not proud of them._

 _F: If you were a truly bad person, you would be proud of them. I doubt Hitler ever regretted the Holocaust._

 _R: Maybe, but I can't help myself. I don't want to do bad things but I just do._

 _F: Is this about being in care?_

 _R: Partly, I guess. The system puts me down so I have to fight for what I want. But go too far and you get shipped off to secure._

"He's a care kid?" Rosemary asked, having started paying attention to the conversation again.

"Stop it," Finley said, holding the screen to his chest. He doubted that Ryan would want people finding out about that without him wanting them to.

"My friend Phoebe says that care kids are really rough," Rosemary continued. "Always getting arrested and graffiti-ing on the streets."

Finley strongly doubted that, but seeing how Ryan himself had testified to his own flaws, it was hard to deny.

 _F: Does that happen often?_

 _R: Not really. I guess my care home is one of the better ones. Have you heard of Ashdene Ridge? It's not far._

 _F: Yeah, I've seen it a few times. What's it like there?_

 _R: Not terrible, it could be way worse. The care workers aren't even that strict._

 _F: Alright. But back to it, do you want my father to help you or not? Because I'm not wasting spoons_

 _R: I'll get back to you on that, I'm not sure anymore._

 _F: Fine_

Ryan ended it there, leaving him with nothing to concentrate on but the tightness in his hips. He would've liked another dose of Codeine, along with some of Chloe's Baclofen* too, but his clock told him that it hadn't been long enough since his last dose of the former and he was pretty sure that Chloe wouldn't appreciate him helping himself to the latter.

Reading one of his magazines was out of the question. It would just bring up all the painful memories again - as well as reminding him what he'd be missing out on.

Ryan sighed, what was he signing up for? Earlier on, he had been so petrified at the thought of dying young that he was willing to do anything that would prevent it. But it was clear he'd misjudged the weight of living life with paraplegia. Looking at Chloe, she had mostly grown used to the obstacles that came with it, but he had seen her be bitter, resentful and even depressed over it at times, despite her attempts to hide it. It was futile anyway, as Ryan could read people like books, but it was during these times that he felt guiltier than ever. Not only for not stopping the accident in the first place, but because he didn't have a clue how to help her.

Theoretically, they could help each other if he was paraplegic also, but knowing her and judging from her reaction to the whole thing, she would be unwilling to help him. He probably wouldn't be deserving of any help anyway - he would be making his own bed and he had to lie in it. (There was the very slim argument that Chloe was lying in a self-made bed too, but she was so little at the time that she could hardly be held responsible.)

Effectively, he'd be trying to navigate an unfamiliar landscape on his own. The thought scared him more than anything else, but he couldn't decide if it was scarier than dying young. Ryan was a cynic at heart, but he wanted to postpone his death as long as possible, as he was sure that if there _was_ such a place as Hell, he'd be sent straight to it.

It was ironic - he didn't like being reminded of his illness and yet it was all he could think about when left to his own devices. Probably because he had the pain to remind him of it.

"Dinner!" Mike called from downstairs.

Food for thought, he could probably think better on a full stomach. The smell wafting from the kitchen was one of sausages and mash, making his stomach growl. It was quite a task for him to wrench his hips from their spastic position and get them to comply as best he could, making him feel rather like a rusted tin man.

* * *

The meal had helped a bit, as Ryan felt marginally better while watching _Nanny McPhee_ with his housemates, but he found that despite his nap and the admittedly enjoyable film, his body still felt leaden. He felt like he could sleep through the loudest, explosion-heavy, CGI-driven, action movie directed by Micheal Bay.

He started wondering, was he even meant to be feeling this tired? Yes, he hadn't had any treatment yet, but a spinal astrocytoma didn't cause this much overall fatigue, did it? Muscle weakness below the level of the tumour, yes, but not chronic fatigue as far as he knew.

The next thought jolted him properly awake - what if it had started spreading throughout his body? Cancer was unpredictable, you never knew where it could end up. For all he knew, it could be in his kidneys by now, or his lungs, or his stomach. What if it had spread to his bone marrow and he had leukaemia like Finley?

A PET scan shortly before his radiotherapy showed that this wasn't the case - the cancer had stayed where it was and had only grown slightly in the days since diagnosis, but at that point, Ryan hardly cared. His mind was made up.

As soon as he could, he texted Finley:

 _Is your dad still free? I need his help._

 ***Baclofen is a medication used to treat muscle spasticity.**


	11. Alabaster Boy

**Finley is played by Tenzing Norgay Trainor (you'll just have to imagine him without hair and eyebrows), thank you Linneagb for casting him. His father is played by Om Puri and his mother is played by Heather Hanson.**

 **I realised partway through writing this that it may not have been a great idea to name two OCs Finley and Joseph when we already have Finn and Joseph as DG residents. To avoid confusion, Finley will always be referred to as Finley and never a nickname like Fin, and Joseph Albaston will be referred to as Mr Albaston.**

 **(Edited 09/01/2018 to include the part about pro bono i.e. working free of charge.)**

"Tell me exactly what you want," Finley said, calling Ryan the next morning.

"I want to have an operation to cut out the whole tumour along with the spinal cord it's attached to," Ryan said. He had hidden behind the bushes in the garden to stop himself being discovered, aided by Bailey, Mo and Sasha's noisy football game. It meant he was unlikely to be heard.

"And why do you want it?" Finley asked.

"You know why," Ryan said.

"Yeah, but it needs to come out of your mouth," Finley explained.

"Why?"

"Because I'm on speaker right now and my dad is listening in," Finley said bluntly.

"What?" Ryan let out. "But won't I have to pay?"

"It's my job to find loopholes," said an unfamiliar male voice on the other end, clearly Finley's father Joseph. "Finley told me about your situation and low allowance, so I'm working free of charge."

"Is that legal?"

"I'm a lawyer, I would know if it wasn't."

"Fine," Ryan huffed. "I want it because if I don't have it, this cancer will eventually kill me regardless of what other treatment I have and I don't want to die."

"Okay," Mr Albaston said slowly. There was a pause on the end of the line. Ryan guessed he was writing things down. "Are you sure this will kill you if you don't have this operation? Moreover, are you sure this operation will save your life?"

Truth be told, something in Ryan told him that the cancer could still come back even after the surgery (this _something_ was an object with poor cellular differentiation and had a nasty habit of turning up where it wasn't wanted). The same thing sometimes happened in amputees with osteosarcoma - their cancer came back and they had to go through the whole palaver again - and some didn't even make it out alive for their efforts. But he knew that if he didn't have the operation, he was _guaranteed_ to kick the bucket after five or so years at the very most.

"I'll die young if I don't have it, that's for sure," Ryan said finally.

"But are you sure the surgery will be useful?" Mr Albaston persisted.

"Dad, he's not a doctor," Finley interrupted. "I thought you were supposed to call medical experts as witnesses?"

"Yes, but I need to make sure he has a case worth taking," Mr Albaston explained. "We need to prove that this operation would be preferable in the long run over what the hospital is offering him."

"Speaking of which, what have they offered you?" Finley asked, addressing Ryan again.

"Radiation," Ryan said. "I have my first one this afternoon. He also said I might have surgery to remove part of it in the future, but not all of it."

"I'm guessing 'he' is Dr Gareth?" Mr Albaston questioned.

"Yeah."

"Have you raised the issue with him?"

"Yes, but he asked about it and they said no," Ryan said. "They said that it would be violating an oath they have to take and they'd get jailed for it."

"Ah yes," Mr Albaston muttered. "Medical malpractice. We need to take that into account."

The conversation went on for over an hour, with Mr Albaston questioning Ryan at every opportunity despite his son's protests ("I need to make sure this case is solid, Finley!"), before he finally had everything he needed, including the amputation argument and even the detail about Ryan's father. Had this been a 'formal' consultation, Ryan would've had to give up his clothing allowance for the next nine months.

"The contract should be ready in about three days," Mr Albaston said. "Only we can't discuss it over the phone. You'll need to come in."

"You still have that business card I gave you, right?" Finley asked.

"Yes." It had mostly remained in Ryan's bedside table to hide it from anyone who would come into his room for whatever reason, but he'd taken pictures should he ever lose it. "That address?"

"Right, see you in a few days," Finley said, before hanging up.

* * *

"You ready?" May-Li asked him.

"Let me finish my drink," Ryan muttered, sitting on a chair in the radiography room with a can of Sprite in his hand.

Truth be told, he just wanted to postpone lying on the table. The linear accelerator looked like something out of a science-fiction movie, with a large arm above the table that would fire radiation into him. As if to enhance the experience of feeling like a test subject for alien scientists, at the same appointment as his PET scan, he had been taken to be fitted for a back brace that would keep him in one position for the whole of the treatment. To Ryan, the brace reminded him more of a straitjacket. Not in terms of its looks, but in terms of its function - to confine his movement. Moreover, the nurse (and the consent form he was given on the day it had been prescribed) had told him that he would have to take his shirt off for the radiation beam to be more accurate.

Not to mention, it was just as well that today was the day he had decided to start rationing his spoons, as he had woken up feeling so stiff that getting out of bed had been a real effort. Getting through the day up to this point one spoon at a time had been easy enough, but he could feel that he'd be running on fumes by dinner time. His many bathroom breaks didn't help with this at all.

Maybe the Sprite hadn't been such a good idea. He threw the can in the bin, even though there was still some left.

"Good," Nurse Hendrix said. "Ma'am, you'll have to go into that room there," he explained, gesturing for May-Li to go to the adjoining room, "and Ryan, it'll take a bit of time to get you into position, so try and be patient. Let us know if you're uncomfortable."

Ryan waited until May-Li had left the room before confessing, "I'm not comfortable with having to take my shirt off."

"That's why I'm here instead of a female nurse," Hendrix joked, though Ryan wasn't in the mood. "I'm sorry, but it's necessary unless you want to take all your clothes off and wear a gown."

Ryan grimaced. "No thanks." That would definitely take up more spoons than was necessary, so he started unbuttoning his shirt. "Will I be able to feel it?" he asked, nodding to the radiotherapy machine.

Before he could feel embarrassed about the childish question, Hendrix answered, "No, you won't, though we might move you on the trolley a few times so they can aim at the whole tumour. Like I said, let us know if you feel uncomfortable at any time while we're setting you up."

In his pretend day when going through the spoon theory with Finley, a hospital visit had taken up three spoons - one for getting there, one for doing whatever he went there for, and one for getting back. Ryan had assumed that lying on a table for half an hour wouldn't be too taxing and he could get away with only two spoons.

Boy, was he wrong. Lying still took more control than walking, even with the help of the back brace, which left him with compression marks in his skin.

While the experience was preferable to having chemotherapy, as well as costing fewer spoons, it didn't come without its own souvenirs and side-effects. When he got changed into his pyjamas that evening, spending his last spoon, he noticed that the area was now sporting an unsightly red rash*, which added insult to injury when it came to back pain as now his heavier clothes rubbed it raw.

"That surgery you wanted would've hurt a lot worse," May-Li had said, noticing him in the kitchen with the rash cream prescribed by the radiographer. She'd researched the side-effects of radiotherapy herself so she had a good idea what it was for.

The mention of the surgery reminded Ryan of the impending meeting with Mr Albaston, which was only in a couple of days now. Its proximity apprehended him slightly, as up to now, it had been a mere possibility, like a zombie apocalypse. Now it had become more tangible, the unfamiliarity scared him all over again.

He really needed to be more decisive. Paraplegia couldn't be half as scary as Hell.

"You finally came to your senses then?" Chloe spat, overhearing this as she slipped past.

"They wouldn't allow it," Ryan said, applying the cream to the rash.

"I wonder why," Chloe muttered. "Why did you want that operation so bad, Ryan?"

What kind of a question was that? "Because it'll save my life," Ryan said curtly. "I've looked it up, the survival rate for my cancer is five years max."

"But your life will be changed forever," she warned. "It'll make it way harder for you."

"Wow, I wonder what it would be like to have a difficult life?" Ryan said sarcastically. He threw the tube of cream back into the cupboard and closed the door with his cane, not wanting to stand up from the chair.

* * *

 _10 spoons._

 _F: The contract is ready. When can you come over?_

 _R: Now._

It was a Sunday, meaning that Ryan had no radiation appointment and he hadn't used his 'going out' spoons yet. He was also lucky enough to wake up with 15 spoons instead of twelve, which he guessed was the work of the radiotherapy. but he still had to be careful. He had used about five so far as he'd been anticipating the journey and wanted to conserve them.

"Mike, May-Li, I'm going out," he said casually, making his way towards the front door.

"Where are you going?" Mike asked, poking his head out of the office doorway.

"Just out into town," Ryan said, the half-lie rolling off his tongue.

"Will you be alright?" May-Li asked, nodding towards his cane.

"I''m getting the bus, I won't have to walk that far."

"Oh yeah, the bus," May-Li let out, as if Ryan had reminded her of something. "We should probably get you a disabled bus pass."

The word 'disabled' punched Ryan in the gut - it had been the first time someone had referred to him as such out loud. "I'll do without it for now," he said. "The stick is all the disabled bus pass I need."

"Can't argue there," Mike murmured. "Well, don't be too long and be sure to give us a ring if anything happens."

Something did happen on the bus ride, though nothing major enough to cause drama over. Ryan had sat down in the designated disabled area, which just happened to be right next to the designated maternity area. Sure enough, a mother was there, with a girl of around ten by her side and a chubby baby in a pram. Immediately, the mother's eyes fell to his cane and she wrapped her arm around her daughter and pulled her close, away from him.

"It's not that scary," Ryan smirked, waving the cane in front of them. "Oh look, a cane. _Whooooh."_

The daughter giggled, but the mother scowled and tightened her grip.

Thankfully, they were off at the next stop and the rest of the bus journey went without hitch. It was a bit of a walk to Finley's house, a walk that Ryan could've made without thinking if he'd been healthy, but doing it with a spinal tumour was a different story. The whole journey had taken two whole spoons before he eventually arrived at the front door.

 _8 spoons._

The house was part of a quaint terrace, all looking similar save for the cars parked in the driveway and the numbers on the doors. This door, Ryan noted, had a brass knocker and a catflap at the bottom.

Good. Better a cat than a dog.

He knocked on the door and a few seconds later it was opened by a short girl with auburn hair and glasses wearing a pale blue polo and khaki shorts.

"Hi," she said, not looking surprised to see him despite her being unfamiliar to him. "Are you Ryan?"

"Yeah," he said, "and you are ..."

"Rosemary, Finley's sister," she introduced, holding out a hand for him to shake.

"The one who told me to get stuffed?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," she said, lowering her hand and looking sheepish. "Sorry about that, I was just doing as he told me."

"I figured."

"Wanna come inside?" she offered, turning around and leading him in before he could offer a sarcastic response of "No, I want to stay standing in the doorway." Nonetheless, he followed her inside.

Much like the front of the terrace, the hallway was quaint, with oil paintings on the walls and a thick crimson carpet. The living room off to the side had cream sofas and even a lazy boy armchair (the kind that has the bottom flip up to support the legs). A large cat basket with a blue cushion sat in the corner, a scratching post next to it that had clearly been well-used.

On the lazy boy was lounging another lazy boy, the one and only Finley Albaston. He looked even more sickly than last time Ryan had seen him thanks to chemo, having lost even the meagre stubble on his head, but he smiled upon seeing Ryan.

"You took your time," he said, made hypocritical by the sluggishness with which he got to his feet. "Do you want a drink or anything?"

"No thanks," Ryan said, shaking his head.

"Take him up to your room for now," came the voice of Mr Albaston from a room to the side of the corridor. "I'll be a few minutes."

Ryan stared, confused, at Finley.

"He takes forever in the toilet," Finley explained. "Come on, I'll show you my room."

They both ended up having to be helped up by Rosemary as Finley's bone pain and Ryan's paraparesis meant that stairs were a task for both of them.

"Honestly, boys are so lazy," she huffed, though she wasn't serious. She was used to helping Finley around, but supporting two teenage boys at once was another ordeal.

 _7 spoons._

Eventually, they made it onto the landing and stood outside the door to Finley's room. "Sorry about the mess," Finley said casually, opening the door.

The room wasn't actually messy at all save for the bedsheets being rumpled, but that was understandable as a fresh chemo dose could more or less render a person bedridden. The room had the essentials, with a tall wardrobe with mirrors on the doors and a desk under the window. Not even the desk was messy, with the books and folders stacked into piles, a silver laptop in the middle and a desk lamp in the corner. The windowsill had several photographs in wooden frames and above the head of the bed was a large poster explaining the Spoon Theory.

A sleek cat was lying spread out on top of the wardrobe, idly washing her paws. Her fur was black except for her paws and chest, which were white. She surveyed the room lazily, though she pounced off the wardrobe as soon as she saw Ryan and circled him several times, meowing incessantly.

"She's always like that," Finley explained. "Do you like animals?"

"Yeah, I'm a vegetarian," Ryan said. "I'm not a fan of dogs though, I'm definitely a cat person."

"Me too, though I'm okay with dogs," Finley said. "Why don't you like them?"

"Just not a fan," Ryan shrugged, taking a seat at Finley's desk chair to rest his calves. The cat suddenly reared up, stretched her front legs up his cane so high that her claws nearly reached the handle, and scraped her claws the length down it. (He was glad that his cane was plastic and not metal, otherwise the sound would've been insufferable.) Then she evidently lost steam and leapt onto his lap, settling down in a furry pillow. Up close, he noticed that she was wearing a red collar with a silver bell at the front and _Harriet_ on the side in black lettering.

Absently stroking her head, he started looking at the photographs on the windowsill, trying to figure the boy out from them. A few showed Finley with hair, which was slightly jarring. School photos, posing in the garden, even a picture of him lying in a hospital bed with two friends that was clearly taken with a selfie stick.

The biggest photo, however, was in the middle of the sill and had a silver frame. It showed Finley's family at Disneyland, posing with Peter Pan and Captain Hook. It was clearly years old, but he could still identify who they were. He knew what Finley's mother looked like, but she'd evidently had her hair colour touched up upon over the years. She was standing next to a stout man with a large nose whose middle filled out his belt, clearly Mr Albaston. Lying in Mrs Albaston's arms was a plump, rosy-cheeked toddler with strands of auburn hair already coating her head, clearly Rosemary as a toddler. Clutching a rainbow ice lolly, she was smiling from ear to ear.

Right in the middle, sitting on the lap of a ten-year-old girl with long dark hair, was Rosemary's opposite - a thin five-year-old boy, pale and frail with not a hair on his head, but still grinning. All five of them were wearing Make-A-Wish Foundation T-shirts.

"Whose lap are you sitting on?"

"Hm?" Finley asked, following Ryan's gaze. "Oh, that's my big sister, Charlene. She's off at uni now, so you probably won't meet her."

"What does she do?"

"Medicine," Finley said, snorting slightly. "No prizes for guessing how she came to that conclusion."

"Indeed," Ryan said, his gaze drifting to the picture of Finley in hospital with two other boys, smiling tiredly at the camera. He noticed that at the bottom of the photo were the words: _Don't break down, Alabaster Boy._

"Alabaster boy?" Ryan asked, laughing slightly.

Finley scoffed. "It's just a nickname they gave me when I last relapsed. It's because my name is Albaston and my cancer makes me so fragile."

"I've never met anyone less fragile," Ryan commented, before he could stop himself.

"Says you," Finley joked. "You've only known you've had it for about a month, you're like Mo Farah compared to me."

"If Mo Farah was going to die in a few years, yes," Ryan said, some of his trademark pessimism creeping back in. "You've lived like this for years and you're still going. I don't stand a chance."

"Yeah, but that's why you're here," Finley said. "So that you can live."

As if on cue, a knock on the door sounded. "Boys, you in there?" came Mr Albaston's voice.

"Yeah, come in, dad," Finley permitted. The door opened and the same stocky man stepped in. The dark hair he'd had in the photo had greyed over the years, but he had otherwise stayed much the same.

"Hello again, Ryan," he greeted, shaking the boy's hand heartily. Harriet leapt off his lap as soon as he stopped stroking her. "Sorry for the wait. Are you ready to see the contract?"

"Of course."

"Good," said Mr Albaston. "Let's get down to business. I'll bring it here so you won't have to walk."

 _6 spoons._

 ***While radiotherapy can cause sore skin, rashes etc on the area being treated, it doesn't happen after one treatment like I've written it here, but rather builds up over several treatments. The bit about the rash cream is accurate though, radiation rashes shouldn't be treated by creams unless they're prescribed by a specialist or radiographer.**


	12. Double Sciatica is a Female Dog

***sighs* The more I do research, the more I realise that this story contains/will contain so many inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Such as, it was only recently that I found out about pro bono i.e. unpaid professional work, especially legal work for a client with low income. I'll need to go back and change the other chapters.**

 **Speaking of research, I haven't the foggiest of how legal contracts are supposed to work/sound, so that's why this chapter took so long.**

 **Happy New Year to all you lovely people.**

 _6 spoons._

"You're very lucky, by the way," Mr Albaston said, bringing a wad of papers stapled together back into the room. "I usually charge £500 for three questions."

"That's a bit steep, isn't it?" Ryan commented, though not without noticing Finley facepalming next to him.

"Maybe so, but it's a living," Mr Albaston shrugged.

"What if they only ask one or two questions?"

"£200 each, £500 is a deal." Mr Albaston smirked slightly before asking, "Now, what's your third question?"

Ryan blinked in surprise, but Finley facepalmed again and groaned loudly. "Do you have to do that every time, dad?" Even the facepalms had left him with a bruise on his bald head.

Mr Albaston was roaring with laughter in the meantime. "I'm joking, Ryan, I'm not charging you a penny," he reassured. "All of this is pro bono."

"Basically, he means that he's not charging you because he feels sorry for you because you're living in care, living on a peanut allowance and dying of cancer to boot," Finley put it bluntly.

Ryan rolled his eyes. Now he saw where Finley's tendency for quips had come from.

"Now, let's look at this, shall we?" Mr Albaston said, placing the contract in Ryan's lap. "I'll let you read over it, take as long as you need and don't be afraid to ask if you don't understand something."

Truth be told, there was rather a lot in the contract that Ryan didn't understand, making him feel painfully simple, but he refused to ask for help out of sheer pride, despite the fact that cancer had forced him to step off his high horse. But he could get the gist out of some parts - he knew this surgery would paralyse him, he was prepared to deal with the consequences and he wouldn't blame or take legal action against the medics who allowed it or carried it out.

All there was left was for him, his legal guardian and all the medics involved to sign it.

 _Shit._ He hadn't told Mike and May-Li he was doing this. They knew he _wanted_ it, but as far as they knew, it wasn't going to happen as Dr Gareth had disallowed it. It wasn't as if he could go through with the whole thing on the sly either.

It was degrading, truth be told - he used to be able to talk his way out of a room with no doors, but it seemed like his new situation had robbed him even of that. The sooner he could get this tumour out of him, the better.

"You okay?" Finley asked, seeing the look on his face.

"Yeah," Ryan said quickly, snapping back to reality. "Just thinking."

"Having second thoughts?" Mr Albaston asked. "Can't say I blame you, this will be a radical operation."

"I can't be the first person to have thought of something like this, though," Ryan pointed out.

"You're not," Mr Albaston said. "Have you ever heard of the hemispherectomy, Ryan? It's an operation where they cut out half of your brain."

Ryan's eyes widened. "Who on Earth would want that?"

"People with otherwise incurable epilepsy," Mr Albaston explained. "In that case, the affected half of the brain will be mostly non-functional anyway."

"The part of my spinal cord that has cancer growing on it isn't very functional," Ryan said.

"That may be so, but I'm telling you this because the hemispherectomy was also used to treat brain tumours back in the day," Mr Albaston explained. "What they found was that the cancer just grew back on the other hemisphere."

His last words were spoken with a hint of grave warning that made Ryan scared all over again. "But they'll still treat me if it comes back, right?"

"Unless you want me to write up a contract stating otherwise," Mr Albaston replied. "Just maybe don't ask them to cut out your spinal cord again - if we keep going like this, you'll be in very sad shape indeed by the end of it."

"You'll be _lucky_ to be in very sad shape indeed," Finley quipped, though his witticism only conjured up scenarios of what could be worse than _very sad shape indeed_ in Ryan's mind. "Have you told your care workers?" he asked, drawing his attention back to the next hurdle that had been occupying Ryan's thoughts.

"They know I want it, but they don't know about this," Ryan said, gesturing to the contract. He wondered briefly how Mike, May-Li and Dr Gareth would react when they found out.

The care workers would probably scold him for attempting something so "reckless" behind their backs and ground him for a month save for school and radiotherapy (which was just as well because going out expended many spoons) and Dr Gareth, he suspected, would be running out of patience with him. He was walking on thin ice with his oncologist right now - and he suspected that this contract would cause him to plunge into the glacial depths below.

"I could tell them myself if you want," Mr Albaston offered. "I have Dr Gareth's email address, so all I need are theirs."

"...fine, thanks," Ryan said, after a pause. "I'll need to understand this a bit better first, though."

"Absolutely no problem," Mr Albaston smiled, standing up from where he had been seated on the bed next to his son. "Feel free to contact me again if you don't understand anything, my phone number is on the card Finley gave you."

"Thanks for doing this," Ryan mumbled, shaking the lawyer's outstretched hand and making to leave.

But when he tried to stand up, he found that he couldn't. Difficulty walking was nothing new for him, but this was the first time he found himself totally unable to stand - and both his legs felt flaccid and stiff at the same time, like he had steel bars in his muscles that were weighing him down.

"I ... can't get up," was all he said, sounding defeated.

"What?" Finley questioned, frowning in concern.

"My legs hurt. A lot."

"I thought that was normal for you,"

"Not this much," Ryan said, pressing his knuckles into his thigh, trying to get some feeling back. "Well, they both hurt and feel numb at the same time, it's hard to describe."

"Sounds like sciatica."

The three males turned to see Rosemary leaning on the doorframe, arms folded and observing the conversation with an owlish stare that seemed to be magnified by her glasses. "I have it too, though only in one leg at a time. If you have it in both legs, it's usually a sign of something really serious." Ryan noticed that she seemed to be putting all her weight on one leg.

"I already know it's cancer, you can't get much more serious than that," Ryan retorted.

"Rosemary," Mr Albaston sighed, giving her a stern look, "what did I tell you about listening in on private conversations?"

"That's funny, I can't remember either," Rosemary replied nonchalantly. "Fin, I'm about to watch _A Clockwork Orange,_ do you wanna watch it with me?"

"Give us a minute," Finley replied, waving her out of the room. She left, walking in a bizarre way that involved stepping properly on one leg but flinging the other out at the hip, like the knee didn't work properly.

"How many spoons do you have?" Finley asked.

"Five," Ryan replied, as the meeting had taken up another one. He realised with dismay that he'd started the journey with ten spoons and three had been used up just getting to the chair he was sitting on. Even if he somehow managed to get back home with sciatic legs, he wouldn't be able to do anything but eat dinner and go to bed - and that was the best case scenario.

"Do you want me to give you a lift home?" Mr Albaston offered.

"No thanks," Ryan declined, realising it would look very suspicious if he came back in an apparent stranger's car. He also wasn't too comfortable with giving a man he'd just met his address.

On the other hand, he realised, he couldn't even stand up from the chair he as in, let alone walk back to the bus stop. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place - have Mr Albaston drive him home and be questioned, or not get home for at least another hour and be told off for staying out too late and missing dinner. He could already hear May-Li's lecture on how missing a meal could spell out trouble in his sick state.

"Rosemary says sciatica takes a while to clear up, you'll probably be here a while," Finley said. "Did you get the bus here?" A nod.

"How about a compromise, then," Mr Albaston said. "I drive you to the bus stop and then you can take the bus to where you need to be. Is that okay?"

Ryan knew he didn't have much choice. "That's fine, thanks."

The fact that he had to be piggy-backed down the stairs partially made him regret the offer, but he realised that at some point, he had to suck these indignities up. That was cancer for you.

"If you think this is bad, imagine what it'll be like when you do have that surgery," Finley commented. "You'll have to be carted around everywhere."

 _We'll see about that,_ Ryan scoffed internally. He knew he'd need some extra assistance, of course, but there were ways to get up and down stairs in a wheelchair. He knew Chloe could, though she didn't do it often because it took a while.

"Good luck with that contract," Mr Albaston said, dropping Ryan off at the bus stop. "Contact me if you want to meet again."

The lift from Mr Albaston meant that Ryan only had to spend one spoon on getting home, leaving him with four. Enough for dinner, going up the stairs and going to bed, meaning he still had one left for himself. He wasn't sure if spoons carried over to the next day if you didn't use them, but maybe he could get away with-

"Mischief!" Bailey's voice commanded as the large dog bounded straight to the door, clearly eager for a walk.

Unfortunately, the collie happened to knock straight into Ryan, causing him to stumble and land heavily on his already painful legs.

 _3 spoons. So much for that._

"Mischief!" Bailey scolded, gently pushing him back and away from Ryan, for which he was very grateful. "Sorry about that," he said awkwardly, offering his hand for Ryan to take and pretending not to notice th important-looking documents he had with him.

"Whatever," Ryan muttered, taking Bailey's hand and using it to pull himself up.

"I think he's got a girlfriend," Bailey went on, ignoring the fact that Ryan couldn't care less about his pet's exploits. "He's been spending a lot of time with the dog from across the road."

 _She's not the only_ bitch _around here,_ Ryan thought, staggering over to the sofa in the foyer and surreptitiously hiding the contract under a cushion.

"What's going on here?" Mike poked his head out of the office at the sound of the minor commotion, before turning to Ryan regaining his bearings on the seat. "Ryan, you okay?"

The sick teenager just turned his head, looked him dead in the eye and uttered:

"Cancer fucking sucks."

 **I have sciatica myself (though thankfully not double sciatica) and all the details about it in this are taken from my own experiences, from the way it feels to the weird limp Rosemary has. I'd be lying if I said she wasn't based on my younger self a little bit - or a lot.**

 **I'll admit, I'm not too proud of this one. I've hit a bit of a block lately, but I'm hoping I can get to the more exciting parts now.**


	13. Deadpool

In spite of losing a spoon thanks to Bailey's mutt, Ryan stayed up late at night reading over the contract several times, his wakefulness fueled only by sciatic pain and the symptom of chronic illness that dictated you could only feel sleepy when it was most inconvenient and not be able to sleep when it was actually bed time.

It probably wasn't healthy, but he was dying of cancer for crying out loud - there wasn't much that anything or anyone could do to him anymore.

Letting Mike and May-Li know was tomorrow's problem, he decided. Mr Albaston had offered to inform the care workers and Dr Gareth for him, but now Ryan felt he would rather stare them in the face and do it himself. He wasn't a coward, cancer or no cancer - he had to maintain a degree of independence.

 _Yeah, so independent that you have to rely on a stick,_ his brain said. Even now, sitting up in bed, his left hand still loosely held his cane. He'd held onto it so much that it had practically become part of his body.

* * *

"He seems nice," Rosemary commented, that same evening in the Albaston household. "You should keep him."

"Keep him?" Finley echoed. "He's not my boyfriend."

Rosemary snorted. "Have you heard the way he talks to you? 'I've never met anyone less fragile than you, Alabaster Boy'," she mimicked, doing a pretty poor imitation of a Scouse accent.

"Shut up," Finley said, swatting at her. "Despite what you may believe, I don't go lusting after every boy I see."

"Right, just that one," Rosemary said.

"That's enough, Rosemary," their mother, Cynthia, warned, looking up from her computer. "Give your brother a break."

* * *

Year 11 wasn't everyone's favourite school year. Not only was the pressure on to do well in your GCSEs, but it was also the year that everyone expects you to be independent and take control of your own life so you could end up with a career you were happy with. Not a bad thing in itself, especially for Ryan, who had learned to help himself and take control of situations early on, but those things were surprisingly hard to consider as he was lying stiff and sore in bed on Monday, with only ten spoons due to his activity the previous day (staying up late probably hadn't helped either), and realising that school would start again on Wednesday.

It almost made him consider declining treatment if dying got him a free pass out of exams.

"Radiation at 2:30," May-Li reminded him, once he'd pulled himself out of bed and made his way downstairs for breakfast.

Oh yeah, that too. The treatment that was (supposedly) killing the cancer cells but was also making his back even more sore due to the rash that liked to remind him of its presence every time he moved. The irritation was almost as obnoxious as the glial cells that had decided to go rogue and start multiplying for no good reason at all (he pushed away the thoughts from several days ago that perhaps he deserved this).

 _How many spoons do you have?_ said the message from Finley later that morning.

 _Seven, why?_ Ryan messaged back.

 _F: Rosemary wants to see Deadpool and insisted I invite you along_

 _R: I've wanted to see that_

 _F: Great, you wanna come?_

 _R: I would, but getting to your house and back took 6 spoons yesterday and I already have to go out for radiotherapy at 2:30, can't spare them. Also, I'm telling my care workers about the contract today._

 _F: Didn't my dad say he'd do it for you?_

 _R: Yeah but I'd rather tell them myself. Preserve my autonomy and all that._

 _F: When does school start for you?_

 _R: Wednesday_

 _F: Could you can come tomorrow?_

 _R: My care workers will probably ground me because of the contract and I still have radiotherapy same time tomorrow._

 _F: Tell them tomorrow then._

 _R: How many spoons do you think I have? I can't borrow some from the next day, I have school._

 _F: Would your care worker be okay with driving you to my house after radiotherapy tomorrow? Dad can drive you back again. You could get away with it if you rest up today so you have enough spoons for tomorrow._

 _R: Let me ask first_

Because Ryan was unwilling to stand up from the sofa, for obvious reasons, he ended up waiting quite a while for May-Li to pass by so he could ask her.

"Of course," she said, sounding rather surprised. "Do you want me to pick you up?"

"No thanks, Finley said his dad can do it."

"Okay," May-Li said. "Well, be sure to let us know if you need help or anything happens."

 _R: I'm coming_

 _F: Great_

The rest of the day passed relatively smoothly, with Ryan falling asleep in the car both on the way to and from radiotherapy (and coming close to doing so again in the linear accelerator), which helped conserve some energy. It meant he managed to get to bed with one spoon left over, which in turn meant he felt much better in the morning - almost like his old self, with 16 spoons.

Today was going to be a good day - at least, he thought so until he opened the drawer in his bedside table to have some Codeine and his eyes fell on the contract he had stuffed in there.

He could cross that bridge when he came to it. He would be seeing _Deadpool_ , a film he had wanted to see for a while, with one of the most charming and attractive people he'd ever met. Today would be the best day he'd had since being diagnosed, and even a bit before that.

 _Optimism from you sounds so weird,_ said his inner monologue.

* * *

"Have fun," May-Li said, as he eased himself out of the car outside Finley's house. "You know what to do if something happens."

"Cheers," Ryan said simply, giving her a nod as he closed the door behind him.

The front door to the house opened before he could even raise his hand to knock. Rosemary was standing behind it, clearly she'd been waiting for him.

"It's a little scary when you do that," Ryan commented.

"Hello to you too," Rosemary replied casually. "Come in, make yourself at home. We have popcorn, M&Ms, crisps, cola, you name it."

"You really put a lot of effort into this," Cynthia said, appearing beside her from the living room.

"Not really, I just wanted a lot of snacks," she said, but looked pleased even so.

Cynthia held out her hand to Ryan. "I don't think I've introduced myself. I'm Cynthia, Finley's mother. Finley's told us a lot about you, Ryan." Ryan shook her hand politely.

"My ears are burning," Finley said, stepping out of the living room as Rosemary walked in. "Hello Ryan, how many spoons do you have?"

"Eleven."

"Good," Finley said. "You know how I said watching a movie would cost one spoon?" A nod. " _Deadpool_ costs two."

"It'd be nice if you'd told me that before," Ryan muttered, following Finley into the living room.

It seemed like Cynthia's comment on Rosemary's effort hadn't been unwarranted. The coffee table in the middle of the room was covered in bowls of snacks and the menu for the film was already up on the screen. Rosemary was already sat on one side of the cream leather sofa.

"Let's get this started," she said, as the two boys sat down next to her.

When they'd all settled in, Finley finally grabbed the remote and pressed play.

* * *

"I call bullshit," Finley said aloud as Wade Wilson was diagnosed with terminal cancer. "If the cancer was in his liver, lungs, brain and prostate, you'd think he'd start showing symptoms much earlier than that. Or, you know, any symptoms at all. He looks like a bloody male model."

"Didn't stop you," Ryan teased, poking his prominent cheekbones. "You look like an alabaster statue."

"Guys, shut up," Rosemary hissed. "Who cares about medical accuracy?"

"You're saying this to two guys with cancer, Rose," Finley pointed out, but was quiet after that.

"Would you guys do _that_ to cure your cancers?" Rosemary asked later on as Wade was subjected to near-asphyxiation in the hyperbaric chamber. "It's not a far step up from that operation you want, Ryan."

"Course not, I'm not risking my dashing good looks," Finley replied with a laugh, running a hand through his non-existent hair. "Good old chemo and arsenic works fine for me."

Ryan remained silent, however. Sure, being on the verge of total suffocation would be torturous, but how much more torturous could it be than dying and burning in Hell for all eternity?

He really needed to stop thinking about Hell. Finley's close proximity to him was making him feel ... rather odd. When their shoulders brushed, his blood vessels filled with fizzy water and the hairs on his arms pushed outwards on his sleeves from the inside. It was bizarre to say the least - he and Finley had sat next to each other before, why were his adrenal glands kicking into overdrive?

"Well, aside from the medical inaccuracy, that was a good film," Finley said as the credits rolled.

"Yeah, it was fun," Ryan admitted, picking the last piece of popcorn out of the bowl. He'd eaten a little of everything except for the marshmallows due to their containing gelatine, but he had a feeling he wouldn't have stomach space for dinner tonight.

Maybe watching the movie on his own would've taken up two spoons as Finley predicted, but the weird fizzy feeling Finley had been giving him had somehow managed to take up another one. Ryan was too busy being confused about this feeling to feel frustrated about how just feeling human emotion - however strong or foreign it was to him - was apparently taxing on his cancer-stricken body.

"Let me get Dad to drive you home," Rosemary said to Ryan, getting up to find the lawyer.

However, it only reminded him of the next big, spoon-costing obstacle ahead of him.

* * *

The thing about life, especially for people like Ryan, was that it mostly consisted of a long series of train wrecks with only short commercial-like breaks of happiness in between. Spending time with Finley was easily the ultimate commercial break.

But now, it was time to go back to regularly scheduled programming.

Mike seemed to freeze as he read the contract Ryan had just given him. Next, he read it over a couple more times, just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Ryan didn't quite know if it was a better or worse reaction that what he had expected.

Finally, Mike's gaze turned towards the boy sitting on the office sofa.

"Just ... what is this?"

"I never understand why people ask questions they already know the answers to," Ryan answered.


	14. Spoons Don't Mix With School

It was no secret that Ryan had done many more questionable things that the average teenager. Hell, he'd done more questionable things than the average resident of Ashdene Ridge, which was saying something.

But Mike thought, reading the contract that Ryan had somehow managed to acquire behind his back, that this had to top all of them. Even the time Ryan had put his job in jeopardy.

"... How did you even afford this?" he asked, after a full minute of awkward silence.

"Pro bono," Ryan explained. "I'm a teenager living in care, my allowance doesn't cover it and I'm dying, so he did it for free."

"What's going on?" May-Li asked, having just entered the office and sensing the tension in the air.

Mike gave Ryan a stern look, indicating that he should be the one to tell May-Li himself.

Ryan took a deep breath, looked her in the eyes and said, "I got a lawyer. He put together a contract allowing me to have the surgery I want without the doctors getting sued for it."

May-Li sighed. She thought he'd dropped the idea weeks ago, but clearly Ryan was more persistent than she'd thought. Honestly though, she couldn't say she was _utterly_ surprised - it was very in keeping with Ryan's track record - and the lengths he would go to get what he wanted were both admirable and absurd. "How are we going to tell your doctor about this?" she asked in the end.

"My lawyer says he'll do it," Ryan explained. "He's the father of one of Dr Gareth's other patients."

"Well, we'll need to talk to him too," May-Li said. "Do you have his number or anything?"

Ryan pulled out the dog-eared business card and placed it on Mike's desk, forgetting briefly that it also had Finley's mobile number on the back. "It's all on there."

Mike sighed. "We'll need to discuss this ourselves first. You, go upstairs, get some rest. School tomorrow, you need to conserve your energy."

"No," Ryan said harshly, gripping the arm of the sofa. "You're not going to discuss this behind my back. This is _my_ life, _my_ body, _my_ cancer. I deserve a say in what happens to me!" Sizzling hot anger suddenly bubbled to the surface.

May-Li sighed. "Fine, you can stay for this. Mike's right though, it's best you rest after. Save your spoons and all that."

"Spoons?" Mike frowned.

"Not important," Ryan dismissed. "Look, what even is there to discuss? You both know what I want and why I want it. Hell, you were supporting me before Dr Gareth said no. Now I can actually, _legally,_ go through with it and suddenly you're against it?"

"We're not against it," Mike placated. "I can understand wanting to prolong your life and not letting cancer beat you. It's just that even if this surgery solves your problem, it'll leave several new ones in its wake. If you think what you're going through now is bad, your symptoms will be ten times worse after the operation. Can't walk, incontinent, your back will still hurt-"

"Except I won't die a horrible death in a few years if I have it," Ryan argued, losing his patience.

May-Li sighed. "Ryan ... I don't want you to think that we don't want the best for you, because we do, and that's why you shouldn't hide things from us and go behind our backs. That's gonna land you in trouble one day."

 _Wow, wonder what it's like to land in trouble?_ said Ryan's inner monologue, though he knew better to say it out loud.

"May-Li's right," Mike agreed. "You should've come to us, we could've sorted this out in a better way."

"Right," Ryan mumbled, relief over not being (strongly) reprimanded washing over him. "Thanks," he added, albeit through gritted teeth.

"Dinner in an hour," Mike said. "Use that time to rest."

Ryan did so, except he opted for the short walk to the adjoining quiet room rather than trying to go upstairs. Much as he didn't like to admit it, his care workers were right. The conversation had left him with seven spoons, which wasn't bad, but they were right about saving them up for school. He didn't want to imagine the amount that would be spent by concentrating in class, walking between classrooms _and_ keeping on top of homework. Just doing all that before he got ill could make him tired - how could he possibly do it now?

It felt like he'd only just nodded off when he was awoken by a monotone, droning male voice, only it sounded like this guy was talking right in his ear.

 _"Yet more female celebrities have spoken out about the sexual harassment and abuse they have suffered at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, including ..."_

"What in the ..." Ryan muttered, waking up properly. His eyes opened to see the faces of Floss and the twins staring expectantly down at him, Floss holding the radio right next to his face.

"Very funny," Ryan said, too tired to get more angry at having his nap interrupted. "Go and annoy someone else."

"We're trying to help," Billie explained, looking slightly disappointed. "May-Li says she always has to take you for radio therapy. We thought you could do that here instead of having to go out all the time."

Ryan sighed. "It doesn't work like that," he explained, reaching over to turn the radio off. "Radiotherapy isn't listening to the radio and it's somehow gonna make me better."

"Then what is it?" Toni asked, frowning.

Realising this was an opportunity to scare them, Ryan smirked slightly and replied: "It's where they take me into a dark room, strap me down to a table and fire laser beams into me to kill the cancer cells."

Sure enough, the twins' eyes widened in shock and fear and they stepped back from the sofa. Floss looked surprised too, but she was made of sterner stuff than the twins.

"Then why is it called radio therapy if it has nothing to do with radios?"

"It's short for radiation therapy," Ryan explained, before hurriedly adding, "and no, I can't just sit next to a radiator and get the same effect. It's a special type of radiation, strong enough to kill cancer cells."

"Does it hurt?" Billie asked, her eyes still wide like saucers.

"Not during it, no," Ryan replied, "but I am left with this." He pushed himself up into a sitting position and pulled his shirt up to show off the rash on his back, which was turning angry red at this point.

At that point, even Floss grimaced.

"Yeah, I know," Ryan said, sensing their shock before letting his shirt down. "Now can you let me go back to sleep?"

"But dinner's nearly ready," Toni said.

"Not hungry."

"Fine, more for us then," Floss said, before leaving, the twins trailing behind her.

* * *

Ryan wasn't looking forward to school.

He wasn't looking forward to people inevitably asking questions about the cane and how he was perpetually tired despite supposedly getting a break over the summer. Honestly, even giving up summer break for more school would've been preferable over the summer he'd actually had - being diagnosed with a terminal illness followed by weeks of pain and fatigue wasn't exactly a trip to a 5-star resort.

Well, apart from meeting Finley. In spite of everything, he couldn't say that their time together hadn't nearly made it all worth it. Nearly.

Speak of the Devil, his phone buzzed with a message.

 _Good luck at school, Ryback ;-)_

Ryan supposed he should thank him for the sentiment, but something else caught his attention.

 _Ryan: Ryback?_

 _Finley: There's a wrestler called Ryan Reeves with that nickname_

 _R: Do I look like a wrestler to you?_

 _F: It's either that or RR_

 _R: I'm not Ryan Reynolds either_

 _F: I couldn't tell, you both look like male models to me ;-)_

Ryan's heart skipped a beat. _He's probably just joking,_ said his inner monologue, but still, he couldn't deny the odd leaping sensation around his midriff reading that text, or the return of the weird fizzy feeling from yesterday.

Perhaps Finley thought he had weirded him out by that message, however, as the next one he sent was a complete change of topic.

 _F: Spoons?_

 _R: 20_

 _F: Decent, but don't waste them. School is when you truly need those spoons, you'd be surprised how many you used without thinking before you got sick._

 _R: Don't remind me_? _school is tiring enough_

 _F: Good thing I don't go back until next Monday_

 _R: Wtf_

 _F: I go to a private school_

 _R: Silver spoon ..._

 _F: Yeah I know_

 _R: Enjoy your time off, alabaster boy_

 _F: What about the contract btw_

 _R: I'll tell you later_

 _F: Fine, talk later_

* * *

"Ryan." Mike placed a hand on his shoulder at the breakfast table fifteen minutes later, "a couple of things. First, we've had to tell the school about your illness. They're not going to shout it to the whole year or anything, what the other kids know is up to you, but the teachers know to not give you detention if you fall asleep in class."

Ryan rolled his eyes slightly at the comment, but internally, he'd been worrying about that too. "You could've told me you were gonna tell them before," he muttered.

"I know, but we have to tell them about any circumstances that may affect your performance or your grades. This is a crucial year for you, Ryan, I'm sure you already know that," Mike explained. "Secondly, if you're feeling bad, you can just give us a ring and we'll come and pick you up. That's another reason we had to tell them, so you're not accused of truanting if you disappear in the middle of the day."

"Thanks," Ryan mumbled simply.

"I'm jealous," Jody muttered to Tyler. "I mean, I get why he can go home any time he wants, but still, you kinda wish you could get a break sometimes too."

"Yeah, cancer would be a lot of fun if it didn't involve continuous pain, radiation rashes and chronic fatigue," Ryan retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Jody deflated guiltily. "I'm sorry Ry-"

"Save it," Ryan interrupted. "Look, we all know that cancer is a shit-show. Like, a Yakov Smirnoff opening for the Spin Doctors at the Iowa State Fair shit-show, and under no circumstances do you want to be starring in that show."

None of them actually knew what a "Yakov Smirnoff opening for the Spin Doctors at the Iowa State Fair" show was like, but suffice to say, if it was anything like cancer, they didn't want to know.

Not even May-Li had the heart to admonish him for his profanity, and the rest of breakfast was spent in quiet.

* * *

Most of the new Year 11s' first day at school had been taken up by assemblies and lectures about the start of the new term and about the importance of their GCSEs. While these had mostly been extremely boring, it had helped Ryan somewhat that they were mostly just sitting in halls and classrooms and he could tune out if need be, which helped in saving spoons. Surprisingly few people had asked about the cane, ("I broke my leg in the skate park, still recovering.") which he was pleasantly surprised at. Maybe school wouldn't be as hard as he'd feared if he could be just as stingy with spoons.

Of course, the following days had to be harder than the first. The demands of school made the task of saving and recuperating spoons to be next to impossible and he quickly forgot about trying to roll them over to the next day. His timetable required him to make what felt like pilgrimages between classrooms, which wasn't aided at all by sciatica and chronic fatigue. He could practically _feel_ the spoons falling from him even before he'd gotten to where he needed to be. His radiotherapy appointments had also been rescheduled for after school, but even these seemed an intolerable burden. By the time sixth period on Friday rolled around, he was just about ready to throw in the towel - it hadn't even been a whole week back at school and he was almost totally depleted of spoons and motivation - he had no idea how he was going to get through the next week, let alone a whole year full of exams and revision.

"Now, you'll have run across quadratics last year, but this year, you'll come across different variations of them. You'll also need to learn how to draw them on a graph," said the maths teacher, Mr Leroy.

"Does he ever shut up?" Peter muttered, sitting at the back of the classroom along with three other boys.

"I'd like to see the day I use these in real life," Simon added.

"Yeah, he's being so boring that he's put Ryan to sleep," Alex pointed out, gesturing to the boy next to him, who was resting his elbow on the table and his head on his hand, eyes closed.

"Can't say I blame him," Peter murmured, hiding a yawn behind his hand.

"Boys," Mr Leroy interrupted, "anything interesting going on over there? I'm sure the rest of the class would be fascinated to hear about it."

"Nothing, sir," Alex said hastily, stomping on Ryan's foot under the table in an attempt to wake him up.

Surprisingly for him, it didn't work. In hindsight, he supposed that he shouldn't have been stamping on the other boy's supposedly injured leg, but still, it should've at least woken him up, right?

It seemed that Mr Leroy himself had noticed, however, as after he set the class to do an exercise from the textbook, he approached the back table and woke Ryan in a more gentle fashion. "Do you want to go home if you're feeling tired?" he asked.

"I'll go when this period ends," Ryan murmured, rubbing his eye.

"Okay, let me just let your guardians know," Mr Leroy said.

"We're tired too," Simon chimed in, "can't we go home?" The resentment was clear in his voice.

Mr Leroy sighed. "There are ... one or two special circumstances with Ryan," he explained delicately, before leaving the room to make his way to the school reception.

"What kind of 'special circumstances'?" Peter asked, narrowing his eyes.

"None of your business," Ryan said harshly.

The boys recoiled under his glare and left him alone until Mr Leroy returned to say that the care workers would be at the school by the end of the lesson. The period ended and Ryan disappeared, presumably to be taken home.

"Honestly," Simon huffed as soon as Ryan was out of earshot, "just because he's injured and happened to fall asleep in class. Are those really 'special circumstances'?"

"I'm gonna try falling asleep in last period," Peter said. "Bet you five quid that I'll get a detention instead of being allowed to go home."

Alex remained silent. On the one hand, he too was annoyed at the apparent favouritism towards Ryan, but on the other, the boy had seemed slightly more melancholy ever since they'd come back to school, and it still struck him as odd that he apparently hadn't felt Alex stomping on his foot.

* * *

"How's it been?" Mike asked, as Ryan came through the door with May-Li.

"As well as it could've, I guess," Ryan shrugged, staggering to the seat in the corridor and flopping down.

"You've done well," May-Li said. "Rest up now, you still have radiotherapy later."

Ryan groaned. "Radiation takes up three spoons, I only have six left."

"You're going to have to explain to me what you mean by 'spoons' some time," Mike said.

"Gimme a sec." Ryan got up, went to the kitchen and gathered up 12 spoons from the drawer, along with the extra thirteenth in his pocket. Mike followed him, looking perplexed, as they both sat down at the counter. Grasping the spoon bouquet in his hands, Ryan looked Mike in the eye, said "Here you go, you have cancer," and thrust them into his hands.

 **Drinking game - take a shot every time the word "spoon(s)" appears in this chapter.**

 **Just as a heads up - I'll be going on hiatus for the next month or two. Yeah, I know that happens with most of my chapters, but this one is because I have A-Levels coming up soon and I've got to prioritise them.**


	15. Dropping Bombshells

***sighs of relief* Finished my A-Levels, finally. Now I just have to wait for results day.**

 _You still haven't told me about the contract situation,_ said Finley's message later that afternoon.

Of course, it had been a couple of days since their conversation just before Ryan's return to school. Worrying about the right ways to save and expend spoons had driven it almost totally out of his mind.

 _I told my care workers, they'll let me have it,_ came the response.

 _F: Good, should my dad tell Dr Gareth then?_

 _R: Yeah go ahead_

 _F: How was school_

 _R: Worse than I remember. Had to go home because I fell asleep in maths_

 _F: Save your spoons mate_

 _R: Easy for you to say, you've been off this whole week._

 _F: I've had to fight through chemo combined with GCSEs for most of the past year and I start sixth form on Monday, I think I've earned it. I've also been a spoonie for way longer than you have, I think I'd know a thing or two about spoon saving_

 _R: Let's hear it then, how do you get through GCSEs and cancer_

 _F: Hate to say it, but you really have to buckle down on good days. Use your extra spoons to learn some of the material ahead of time so that you won't be missing out if you have to take days off._

 _R: Are you kidding me_

 _F: I wish I was_

Naturally, the prospect of using his extra energy to pour through his maths textbook instead of doing something more fun (such as sitting through a 2-hour-long lecture on the history of socks) just further put Ryan off going back there. It was that coupled with his premonition that the other boys would accuse him of being lazy or getting special treatment after what had happened in maths earlier that day.

 _F: And you should be cancer free in not very long anyway_

 _R: Fair point, sorry for complaining_

 _F: Dw, I get that it's tough_

Speaking of tough, Ryan had decided that he was ready for bed even though it was only 7:30 pm. Radiotherapy had taken up three more spoons, as per usual, and his explanation of the spoon theory to Mike prior to that had taken up another one. He suspected it was for that very reason that Mike had allowed him to go up to bed early. He really did need all the energy he could get to get through the next week of school.

The weekend slipped by, and soon enough it was time to face school again.

"Are you sure you're okay with going back?" Mike had asked him. "You don't want to take some time off to recuperate?"

"What do you think I've been doing all weekend?" Ryan had retorted, rather snappily. "Look, I'm fine, alright? I'll tell you if I'm not," he continued, lying slightly on the last part.

The school day passed about as smoothly as the others did, save for a slight anomaly in the form of Peter, Simon and Alex constantly "falling asleep" in lessons, especially when they knew he could see them, and sending him glares when they were reprimanded by the teachers for their antics. He could ignore them for the most part though. There were more pressing matters than a few immature idiots.

Like the contract.

After stumbling through the school day, both literally and figuratively, he caught sight of Mike staring at him from the office with a resigned expression - one that said he was tired of having to do this.

"Dr Gareth knows about the contract," Mike had told him up front.

"I know, I told my lawyer to tell him," Ryan said flatly. "When does he want to see us?"

"Tomorrow afternoon," Mike replied. "It's around 2 p.m, so I'll need to call the school and tell them."

With a nod, Ryan slunk away and sat down at the kitchen table, getting out his homework, though he was doubtful he'd be able to finish all of it. At max, he could spend only one spoon - out of the six he had, he needed three for radiotherapy, one for dinner and one for getting ready for bed.

He vaguely heard activity in the kitchen across from him, but he didn't look up to see, instead trying to spend his energy on the history homework due tomorrow. It was only when a rich chocolate smell reached his nostrils that he looked up in intrigue.

"What are the brownies for?" Jody asked, walking into the kitchen to see Kazima pulling a steaming tray of brownies out of the oven.

"My class are having a bake sale tomorrow," Kazima explained. "It's for a charity for terminally ill children."

"Really?" Ryan chimed in. "Great, give me your money."

Jody and Kazima only laughed awkwardly at his quip. Suffice to say, they didn't like being reminded that he was technically dying.

The next morning came too fast for Ryan's liking. He wasn't scared of his doctor's reaction _(Yeah, that's why you had to tell Mr Albaston to tell Dr Gareth about the contract instead of doing it yourself,_ said his inner monologue), but he still wasn't looking forward to that afternoon. Or the rest of the day for that matter.

* * *

It was English, the last lesson before lunch and Ryan's last lesson before his appointment with Dr Gareth. As par for any Literature course, they were studying a Shakespeare play - _Twelfth Night_ to be exact - and were about halfway through it having gone through the first half the previous year. One of the other boys in their class, Jake, was reading through Maria's "love letter" to Malvolio in iambic pentameter. Despite usually being one of the more amusing parts of the play, his disinterested tone of voice had managed to make even the notion of a man wearing bright yellow stockings with crossed garters sound dull.

"I won't blame you if you decide to take a nap for this one," Simon murmured to Ryan, hiding a yawn behind his copy of the play.

"Yeah you will," Ryan muttered back. "You're all tired too, remember?"

"Seriously, what the hell is going on with you?" Alex whispered. "There's something different about you, I know it."

Before Ryan could offer up a retort, the monologue was finished and their teacher was talking again.

"Thank you for the reading, Jake," said Ms Maddock. "Can anyone tell me what's happening in this scene?"

"It was just a prank, bro," drawled Simon, causing the class to laugh.

Even Ms Maddock smiled at that. "You're not wrong, Maria, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are playing a joke on Malvolio. But what this shows is another example of dramatic irony - the audience knowing something the characters don't. In this case, Malvolio believes this love letter is from Olivia while the tricksters and the audience all laugh at his narcissism."

"Sounds like someone I know," Peter smirked, lightly elbowing Simon.

"Hey, I'm not that bad, surely," Simon protested.

"Well, you could reel it in a bit," Alex said. "Be a bit more subdued, like Ryan here," he said, giving the other boy a friendly thump on the back. Not too hard a thump either - which was why Ryan's reaction was totally unexpected.

"OW, FUCK!" Ryan yelled, the pain in his back exploding and spreading down his spinal cord to his sciatic nerves, causing his hips to seize up. He clenched his jaw shut and clutched the table leg in a grip that would've probably been crushing had the table leg not been made of solid metal.

"Ryan, language!" scolded Ms Maddock, though her face betrayed her concern. She knew about Ryan's illness, of course, like every other teacher who currently taught him (and like every teacher who _didn't_ teach him - rather unprofessionally, the information about the Year 11 boy with cancer had got out and spread like a rumour around the staff room, reaching the ears of every teacher that taught full time there), and she worried about the amount of pain he was in. She quickly walked over and whispered, "Are you okay?"

Ryan didn't verbally respond at first as the pain was still obnoxiously persistent, but he gave his head a tight nod.

"Well, now we _know_ there's something wrong," Peter said. "If you actually just broke your leg, your back wouldn't hurt that much ... would it?" He was no medical expert, after all.

"No, it wouldn't," Alex agreed, mostly recovered from the shock of the unexpectedly severe reaction to his token thump. "What really happened to you?"

"Boys, don't harass him," Ms Maddock said sternly. "It's a sensitive matter and it's up to him whether he tells you or not."

"No, let me," Ryan sighed, the pain subsiding slightly. It was still there, but at least he could speak through it. Normally, this would be the type of announcement he would stand up to give, but this time he just settled for sitting up straighter. The class did likewise, eager to hear an explanation.

"Over the summer, I started getting these little pains in my back and legs," Ryan started. "At first, I thought nothing of them, but then they started getting worse. Eventually, they got really bad, so I went to the hospital and had a scan," he continued, before dropping the bombshell. "It's cancer. I have a Grade 3 tumour growing in my spinal cord and it's eating up most of my energy. That's why I'm always so tired and yes, I might fall asleep in class occasionally and/or have to go home early. There, you satisfied now?"

Needless to say, the class was speechless at the revelation. Most were looking at him in fear and awe, while Peter, Simon and Alex looked quite guilty.

Thankfully, the bell went, signifying the end of the lesson, thereby giving Ryan an excuse to get up and leave. Most of the class also started packing their things away too, but he deliberately looked firmly away from them, even as their eyes burned holes in his still-throbbing back.

* * *

Honestly, Ryan was glad he could escape from the pitying looks of his classmates halfway through lunch - no doubt the whole year would know by the end of the day. Not that he was much looking forward to the exasperation of his doctor, but much like everything else his cancer had brought with it, he had to suck it up.

But to the shock of both him and Mike, his doctor was surprisingly cordial during the appointment.

"I can't even say I was surprised when Mr Albaston emailed me and explained the whole situation," Dr Gareth said. "He attached a copy of the contract and I read it over then. You're a stubborn lad, Ryan, and that's not always a bad thing."

Ryan flicked his eyebrows up in response - needless to say, though preferable, this wasn't the reaction he'd expected from the oncologist.

"It's one thing to take matters into your own hands, but another to deal with the consequences," Dr Gareth continued, his voice now having a more serious edge to it, "and I'm warning you Ryan, the aftermath of this will be one of, if not _the_ hardest thing you will ever go through. It's going to be frustrating and there will be times where you'll want to give up, but I assure you, if you commit to learning and adapting to your new situation, it will get easier with time. Are you prepared for this?"

Dr Gareth's words of warning did intimidate Ryan slightly, but he had come so far and fought so hard for this operation that he could hardly back out now. "Yes."

"Alright," Dr Gareth replied. "You brought the contract along like I asked you to?"

Ryan nodded, fishing it out from his school bag and placing it on the desk. He and Mike had already signed their names in the appropriate places, so all that was left was for Dr Gareth and all the other medics involved to do likewise.

"I'll need to keep this," Dr Gareth said, after signing. "I'll need to first schedule the surgery, and then the surgeon will need to sign on the day they do it. I'll let you know when that day will be a bit later."

"Do I still have to have radiation?" Ryan asked.

"Afraid so," Dr Gareth replied. "I don't how long it'll be before you can have the surgery, it could be a while. If you stopped having the radiotherapy, that just leaves more opportunity for the cancer to grow and spread, meaning it won't be much use."

Ryan groaned internally at that - he didn't much like spending extra spoons on radiotherapy - but he wasn't as annoyed as he could be. He'd won.

 _It's done,_ came the message from Ryan to Finley later that day.

 _F: How was it?_

 _R: Better than I thought, Gareth said he wasn't surprised_

 _F: When are you having it_

 _R: Don't know, he says it could be a while_

 _R: How's school been for you?_

 _F: About what I expected. A-Levels, UCAS, run of the mill stuff_

 _R: Spoons?_

 _F: Started today with 15, now I have 5_

 _R: At least you don't have to go to radiotherapy every day_

 _F: Mate I can barely get out of bed on chemo days, let alone go to school, it's a wonder I passed my GCSEs with how many I missed._

 _R: Stop making me feel bad for complaining damn it_

 _F: Sorry, you have problems too. They're probably gonna get worse after the operation_

 _R: Don't feel sorry for me, I'll have made my bed and I'll have to lie in it._

 _F: You won't be able to get through it without help though_

 _R: What, you're just gonna come over and be my personal assistant?_

 _F: I could if you wanted me too_ ?

Ryan's heart pounded at the thought of being helped around the clock, especially by Finley. He couldn't resist the opportunity for a witty retort though.

 _R: Why? Can't keep your hands off me?_

 _F: Hey, I'm just being a gentleman_

 _R: Lol, thanks but no thanks_

In spite of the appointment with Dr Gareth playing out better than he'd expected, the day had already given him new worries to ponder over - namely, the fact that most of his school year probably knew about his illness and would be treating him like an antique vase. The rest of the week if not the rest of the year would be awkward at best and infuriating at worst, and he suspected it would get even worse after the paralytic surgery.

He could deal with it though. There were more important things than a few annoying peers. Or a few dozen.

Still, it would be interesting to see what would happen when he walked into class the next morning.

* * *

Ryan didn't walk into class the next morning.

He was used to waking up feeling stiff, sore and like he hadn't slept well the previous night, but this was the first time since being diagnosed that he could remember waking up feeling like complete and utter _shit._ Despite the warm day and his thick duvet, he shivered with chills and strongly regretted wearing short sleeve pyjamas the previous night. Said pyjamas were plastered to his skin with warm, sticky sweat, which was unpleasant on its own but was at its worst at the spot on his back where the radiation rash was. His brain felt like it was being constantly thrown against the inside of his skull and his stomach was rolling like waves on a stormy ocean.

On top of all that, his spoon supply had been decimated overnight, leaving him with only a pitiful few spoons to use - maybe three, four at most? Barely enough for a morning routine, let alone a day at school.

Naturally, there was no question as to him even getting out of bed, let alone going to school. "We'll let your school know, and call your doctor to tell him you can't have radiotherapy this afternoon," May-Li told him, before leaving his room before he could realise that she was freaking out inside.

May-Li had the cursory knowledge of cancer that most people did, but she was no oncologist, and she didn't know about the reasons why someone with cancer might suddenly develop a fever, especially if it wasn't part of the initial symptoms and they were meant to be having it treated. As far as she knew, the cancer may have spread somewhere else and was making him even sicker.

"Mike," she started as the other kids were milling around upstairs, trying to get to the bathroom first, "Ryan has a fever and can't even get out of bed. I'm worried." Honest and to the point, as she often was.

"Oh," Mike replied simply. "Okay, I'll call Dr Gareth later, see if it's anything to be concerned about and if it's safe to give him something for it. We also need to tell the school and tell the doctor that-"

"I know, it's on my to-do list," May-Li replied, before leaving the office.

"38.8 degrees," May-Li noted, taking Ryan's temperature a short while later. "Not too serious, but hey, I'm no doctor. You should probably take tomorrow off too"

Ryan groaned, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Can't you just give me a pill?"

"I would, but we need to call your doctor to ask if it's okay," May-Li explained. "Your body isn't working how it should, Ryan, we don't know how you'll react to it."

"I'm not a fragile little-"

"Yes, you are."

Unable to form a better response, Ryan just groaned again, throwing the duvet over his head.

He probably slipped off to sleep again, as when he next opened his eyes, the house was quiet and the sun was shining brighter through the window. He rubbed the sleep dust out of his eyes, wincing against the glare of the light making his headache sharpen. He would get out of bed to close the curtains, but his stomach was still misbehaving and he felt it safer to stay in bed.

A knock on the door sounded. "Ryan, you awake?" It was May-Li's voice again, but it only made him wince again at the spike in his headache the noise made. "Yeah."

The door opened and May-Li walked in, holding a glass of water and some pills.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, sitting down next to him as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing as it pulled at his back.

"Not much better," he admitted. "Can I have that?" He gestured to the pills.

"Yes," she said, passing him the water, for which he was very grateful as his copious sweating meant he was very thirsty. As he popped out a pill and washed it down with the water, she started talking to him.

"I called Dr Gareth," she started, "and he said that the fever could be for a few reasons. He said that sometimes your type of tumour releases something called interleukins, which can cause a fever, I don't really know how it works. But he also said that this could be a good sign. He says that it could be a sign that the tumour is breaking down and your immune system is trying to mop up the pieces. You could be getting better."

Ryan saw where she was going with this. _You might not need that surgery._

"I'm still having the operation," Ryan insisted, as firmly as he could muster.

May-Li just nodded in response. Truth be told, she wasn't expecting much else. "I also asked him if it was possible the cancer was spreading. He said it was unlikely, but that you should probably come in for a scan or two when you're feeling better, just to be sure."

Ryan nodded, placing the now-empty glass on his bedside table.

"Do you want to eat something?" May-Li asked. "You haven't eaten anything so far."

Ryan shook his head hurriedly, wrapping an arm around his stomach. "Too nauseous."

"Okay," May-Li said, picking up the glass and standing up to leave. "Just rest for now, and call if you need anything." With that, she left.

To Ryan's annoyance, even that small exchange had robbed him of a spoon. He needed to recuperate them - maybe his days of rest would leave him with more to use later. It would be easier to sleep with the paracetamol easing his symptoms.

He spent the rest of the day dozing on and off, with an interlude in the middle of a cheese sandwich for lunch. He was feeling a little better in the afternoon, his headache had dimmed and he wasn't quite so nauseous, but he was still weak and slightly shivery.

Around four in the afternoon, he heard the chatter of his housemates as they came in from school. Even then, he paid little mind to them - he was floating in the limbo between asleep and awake, and everything around him seemed to have faded to a vague, foggy haze. Any amount of time could've passed in the haze - it might've been five minutes, it might've been five hours, Ryan certainly didn't know, or care.

That was until the haze was breached by voices just outside his door.

"He has a right to know!"

"Chloe, he has enough on his plate already, he doesn't need this as well!"

"Oh, and what are you going to tell him when she turns up on the doorstep?"

Ryan quickly recognised the voices as belonging to his sister and Mike.

"What's going on?" he called, though sickness had made his voice weak.

A sigh was heard from behind the door, before it opened to reveal Mike and Chloe outside it, looking rather awkward.

"Look, don't beat about the bush, just cut to the crap," Ryan sighed. He didn't have the spoons for this.

Mike and Chloe exchanged a glance, before Chloe nodded and Mike left the room to give them some privacy.

Chloe took a deep breath. "You know how your wish was to see Mum again, so you could yell at her or whatever?"

"Yeah?" Ryan asked, frowning.

Chloe sighed. "Well ... we've heard back from her. She says she wants me to come to America and live with her again, and she's gonna come here to meet me."

 **Honestly, I love the relationship between Finley and Ryan so much, their conversations are so fun to write.**


	16. Old, Unhappy, Far-Off Things

Perhaps if Ryan hadn't been feverish, exhausted and carcinogenically challenged, he would've had a stronger reaction to Chloe's announcement that their mother was returning.

As it was, all he did was stare at her with an indecipherable expression on his face for a few moments, before making his decision.

"I don't have the spoons to deal with this shit," he said, flopping back down onto the bed.

Chloe didn't know if she was more surprised by his lacklustre reaction or his casual use of "spoons" as if he expected her to understand. "Fine, suit yourself," she said simply, before wheeling out of the room. She knew it would properly sink in eventually - probably when he had more "spoons", whatever that meant.

In her absence, Ryan dozed off for what felt like the dozenth time that day. When you were chronically ill, sleep was something you felt like you could never get enough of, especially seeing how sleeping was difficult when it was actually bedtime. It was at times like this where Ryan wondered if a chronic illness was trying to make you nocturnal.

No one is absolutely certain as to why humans sleep, but it's clear that aside from resting the body, sleep plays an important part in many important tasks, including memory and learning. REM sleep has been shown to particularly facilitate the retention of emotionally-laden information. Some researchers even believe that the principal of sleep is to allow us to dream, which is an essential part of the process of resolving emotional issues.

So maybe that was why the information about his mother sparked a dream about her - and not a nice one.

You'd think that after years upon years of trying to repress the memory of such a tragedy, certain details would be rather vague and blurry. This was, indeed, the case for Ryan - if he truly remembered everything exactly as it had happened, he would've always known that he had never pushed Chloe and would have never carried that guilt for almost a decade - well, not to the extent that he did, anyway.

But dreams are odd. Even if his mind was filling in some of the blanks with new information, all details - true or false - were as vivid as they would've been as if he was recalling events that had happened yesterday. The tiny pink teddy bear top Chloe was wearing, scruffy and slightly stained. The huge smile on her face as she shook him awake excitedly, saying that he should get up early so they could have fun. The paper birthday card she had given to him, a crudely drawn picture of both of them standing on a sandy beach with big smiles, a big number 5 above them, drawn with wax crayons.

He remembered the stifling heat that summer's day, so his mother had left the window open before going out grocery shopping. Ryan had taken that opportunity to sneak into her bedroom and snoop around with Chloe, opening up her wardrobe and drawers to find out what "grown-up" treasures could be hidden in there - only to find a few tall, dark glass bottles stuffed into her bedside cabinet. There was even one under her pillow.

Chloe had begun to have qualms then. Even as a three-year-old, she could probably sense the bottles were slightly off. She worried that their mother would come in and find them looking around her room and ran off. Ryan, however, found too much morbid fascination in the sleek, sinister bottles to follow her.

Looking back, he'd quickly sussed out that Chloe must've been trying to see their mother through the window before she fell. Somehow, her cries of fear as she fell from the window to the pavement below failed to reach his ears (and was yet another reason why he still felt a degree of culpability for the whole incident). It was only when he heard his mother's scream that he abandoned his findings and ran to find out what had happened.

The sight of Chloe's mangled body was a sight he would never forget.

Their mother was cradling her little body in her arms - which was actually the last thing you should do when coming across a casualty with clear injuries such as broken bones - when she looked up to see the height of the fall and met Ryan's eyes as he stared down at the scene below him.

Her face contorted before suddenly she seemed to pounce like a cheetah from the pavement all the way up to the window on the first floor (How she did that, Ryan had no idea, but dreams aren't particularly known for making sense). Her hands were outstretched like claws, going straight for him ...

Ryan woke with a start, breathing heavily, more beads of sweat clinging to his forehead and jawline. It was all just a dream ... except it wasn't, it had already happened years and years ago - and his mother was returning for round 2.

Sleeping was meant to recuperate spoons damn it, now he had one fewer than he had before he went to sleep.

"Are you okay?"

Ryan looked up to see May-Li standing by his bedside, a tray in her hands and a look of bewildered concern on her face. On the tray was another glass of water and a steaming mug of something. Ryan really wasn't in the mood to eat, but the nausea wasn't due to his illness this time.

"She's back," Ryan simply said in response, as if he were in the Wizarding World declaring that Voldemort was back.

May-Li sighed. "That she is." She set down the tray on his bedside table and brought his desk chair over to sit down next to it. He could smell slightly that the mug was full of chicken soup, classic sick food. If only enough chicken soup could cure cancer.

"Do you want to meet her?" May-Li asked.

Ryan let out a mirthless laugh, sitting up. "I was actually planning to spend my wish on it."

May-Li's eyebrows flicked up in shock. "I know, it sounds weird but ... all I've wanted for ages is to see her one last time, just so she could really see what she did to me, so I could tell her exactly what I went through because of her, just ... make her feel just as bad as I did for years."

May-Li rubbed the top of his back in sympathy, avoiding the tumour and noting with worry that his fever appeared to be rising again after falling in the afternoon due to the medication. It was understandable once explained - Ryan had been told constantly for many years that he was evil and had been heavily ostracised for it. Treat someone like a monster, especially a child, and it wouldn't take long for them to believe it and act accordingly. It was incredibly tragic now she thought about it. "I'm sorry, Ryan."

The boy just shrugged in response. "Not much I can do about it now."

"I think your temperature's risen again," May-Li commented, touching her fingers to his forehead. "Do you want some more medicine for it?"

Ryan just nodded, maybe it would help the nausea as well.

May-Li left and returned with the pills, popping one out for him to swallow. He washed it down with the water before reaching for the mug of soup, taking a small sip to test its temperature. Warm, not hot, so he took a couple of gulps. It wasn't too bad, but not quite tasty enough to give him an appetite. "Thanks," he murmured, setting it down.

"You should sleep, now," May-Li said. "You've has a rough day, you'll feel better in the morning."

Ryan scoffed. "I fell asleep after Chloe told me, next thing I had a dream about mum coming to get me," he retorted, rather matter-of-factly.

May-Li just nodded in sympathy. "Well, you should still rest up, we can talk about it more tomorrow if you want, when you're a bit stronger."

Realising he wasn't going to win, Ryan just nodded, slumping down as May-Li left. He wasn't going to sleep yet though, he needed someone to lean on, loath as he was to admit it.

 _Spoons?_

The answer came a few minutes later.

 _Just 2_

 _R: Can you spare one?_

 _F: Think so, wassup?_

 _R: I just need to talk to someone rn_

 _F: What about?_

 _R: It's kinda a lot, idk where to start_

 _F: The beginning is always a decent starting_ _point_

Ryan then proceeded to spill his backstory to Finley - how his father had died from the same type of cancer he had when Ryan was three, causing his mother to turn to alcohol to cope with her husband's sickness and later death. He told him about the constant neglect of him and his little sister Chloe, culminating in Chloe's fall while their mother was absent and the subsequent framing of an innocent just-turned-five-year-old. Finally, he filled him in on how his sister was put into care when their mother had moved to America, the reveal of her lies, and she now had the gall to come back and try and bring Chloe back to America with her.

There was a long moment of no response after that before finally a message returned saying:

 _Would it be rude to say that I don't have the spoons to deal with this right now?_

Ryan let out a somewhat manic laugh. _That's almost exactly what I said when my sister told me_ , he texted back.

 _Sounds terrible though. Sorry man, talk later_ , came Finley's message.

* * *

The next morning arrived quickly, with Ryan waking up long after the others had left for school, feeling a little better than when he'd gone to sleep, but still weaker than preferable, with only 7 spoons. He'd probably be recovered enough to go back to school tomorrow, though he definitely wasn't looking forward to the reactions of the rest of his school year.

But there was a lingering feeling that he was dreading something else - something that dwarfed his worry about his classmates ...

Oh yeah, his mum was coming back. The same woman responsible for most of his life being a complete shitstorm.

Still, he could deal with that later. His body felt gross from lying in bed all of yesterday and his back and legs were hurting again. He reached for some Codeine and swallowed a pill dry, before pushing himself up and hobbling out of the room. By the time he had showered and dressed, the Codeine had kicked in and he felt better, albeit with only five spoons left.

"You feeling alright?" Mike asked, seeing him sitting in the kitchen shortly after, reaching for an apple for breakfast. His hair was tousled and his normally pale cheeks were still tinted pink from the remnants of fever, but otherwise, he seemed relatively okay.

"Better than yesterday," Ryan said simply, taking a bite out of the apple.

Mike nodded, taking a seat next to him. "Best conserve your energy today. We had to cancel your radiotherapy yesterday, of course, but that means you'll need to have another one on Saturday to make up for it."

Ryan groaned. "Mike, the only way I'm gonna get through today with radiation in it is if I literally do nothing from now until we have to leave for it."

"Spoons?" Mike raised an eyebrow.

Ryan nodded. "Radiotherapy needs three - one for getting there, one for getting back and one for being strapped to a table and having laser beams shot into me," Ryan explained with a scoff. "I have five now and I need one for lunch, one for dinner, one for getting up the stairs" - he ignored the widening of Mike's eyes at that point - "and another for getting ready for bed, and I'm probably losing one just talking to you right now. See? It doesn't add up."

Mike silently stared at Ryan's resigned expression for a few moments, finally fully taking in the full extent of the physical limitations presented by Ryan's perpetual sickness, as well as how frustrating that must be for him.

Finally, he said, "Does caffeine help?" though it sounded lame even to his own ears.

"If only," Ryan snorted, "Sadly, chronic fatigue doesn't work like that, I've tried. It doesn't make you any less tired, but it does make it harder to sleep."

Mike sighed. "Alright, just don't worry about it, okay? We'll sort it."

True to his word, Mike did sort it - or try to, anyway. After successfully postponing radiotherapy that afternoon, he decided to do some research on reducing fatigue when dealing with cancer, trying to see if there was any way he could help Ryan.

Finally, he resolved to talking to Dr Gareth about medications to reduce Ryan's fatigue. It probably wouldn't eliminate it entirely, but it could supply him with a precious few more spoons.

Or maybe the doctor would refuse, seeing how Ryan would hopefully be cured soon and his strength would return to him in time.

* * *

The rest of the day passed and soon enough, the others returned home from school. Ryan was sitting on the sofa playing a video game when Tyler flopped down next to him, school uniform wrinkled and his tie undone.

"How are you feeling?" Tyler asked.

"Better," Ryan said, pausing his game. "I'll probably be back at school tomorrow."

"Yeah, about that ..." Tyler looked down sheepishly, "... the whole year knows you have-"

"I know, I told them," Ryan interrupted nonchalantly. "What's happened?"

"They won't shut up about it," Jody huffed, joining the conversation. "But it'll pass, it'll be old news by next week."

"Hopefully," Ryan snorted.

Chloe appeared suddenly, clearing her throat aggressively at Tyler and Jody, signalling for them to leave. They did, looking rather unnerved.

"Mike says that Mum will be arriving next Saturday," Chloe said simply. "Just thought you should know."

"Do you wanna go back with her?" Ryan asked sharply, expressing what had been plaguing his mind.

Chloe blinked, looking down awkwardly as if she didn't know how to answer the question. "Um ..."

Her lack of response said enough for Ryan. "Whatever, I can't control you," he said, turning back to his video game and leaving Chloe disheartened.

* * *

When Ryan walked into his classroom the next morning, all conversations stopped almost instantly and everyone in the room turned to stare at him like he was a grenade that had its pin removed.

"Keep staring, I might just do a backflip," Ryan quipped, before making his way over to his seat like nothing had happened.

Through the rest of the day, Ryan did his best to maintain a nonchalant, uncaring attitude, but it wasn't easy with everyone's eyes burning into him like the beams from the linear accelerator. His teachers, thankfully, still treated him the same as they had known beforehand, but he could see them occasionally giving warning looks to those who whispered no-so-subtly behind his back.

He felt those whispers like spiders crawling up his back.

The one person in his class that seemed to have a semblance of common decency was Violet, a quiet girl who often seemed to be peeping out at the world from under her heavy dark hair. She wasn't peeping now, only glancing down at the biology worksheet they had been given. Ryan guessed her reaction would've been roughly the same whether he had cancer or whether he led a double life as a supervillain that held entire cities under his dictatorship using his immeasurable telepathic powers.

Which was why she was the last person he expected to be accompanied by when he sat alone at lunch.

"Hey," she greeted at first.

"Hey," he muttered in response.

"So ..." she said awkwardly, "you're sick."

"Wow, I didn't notice," Ryan said with an eye roll. "Look, you don't have to feel sorry for me, I'm coping."

"Doesn't look like it," Violet commented, looking at his plate that was still two-thirds full despite the fact that lunch had been going on for half an hour. "You haven't been eating much since we got back."

"Yeah, that's what happens when you have radiation shot into you at least once a day," Ryan explained. "Besides, even if I did eat more, half of it will go to the little bugger growing inside of me."

Violet actually let out a chuckle at that. "That makes it sound like you're pregnant."

Even Ryan couldn't hold back a smirk. "I prefer to think of it more like a parasitic tapeworm."

"Sounds lovely."

Ryan shrugged. "That's cancer for you."

"So you're on radiation," Violet sussed out, "and chemo too?"

"No, just radiation," Ryan said. "It's not as bad as it could be, all things considered."

Violet was surprisingly easy to talk to, even for someone as normally closed off as Ryan. She always had an answer to everything he said, making it easy to keep the conversation flowing.

As lunch ended and they got up to put their trays away, Ryan asked her, "You won't tell anyone what I've told you, right?"

"Who would I tell?" Violet replied. "My best friend isn't here and I don't talk to many other people."

"Thanks," Ryan said simply. "See you around, probably."

* * *

 _F: When is your mum coming?_

 _R: Next Saturday, Chloe says._

 _F: Good, gives you some time to prepare_.

 _R: I don't think I ever will be_

 _F: But you wanted to see her, right? You told me, you wanted to use your wish for it._

 _R: Yeah but I didn't want the possibility of her_ _taking everything away from me hanging over my head._

 _F: What does Chloe say_

 _R: I asked her if she wanted to go with her, she said nothing_

 _F: And?_

 _R: She obviously wants to go but doesn't want to say it to my face._

 _F: Yikes_

 _R: You're telling me_

 _F: I guess you'll just have to wait and see_

Ryan would've preferred to do more waiting and less seeing, but the following week passed far too quickly. Before he knew it, it was and Chloe was waiting by the door for their mother to turn up. Ryan preferred to remove himself from the matter for as long as possible.

Finally, the door opened and he heard Mike greeting Ms Reeves ("Please, call me Karen.") and Chloe's exclamation that she was excited to see her again.

May-Li walked into the lounge - the room that Ryan was currently hiding in - and squeezed his shoulder. "Go on, see her. We're all supporting you," she whispered.

Very reluctantly, Ryan stood up and made his way into the foyer, step by step, May-Li following close behind.

Then Karen looked up from Chloe and saw him, and he saw the same face that had held such rage directed towards him in his dream and many a time in real life.

Earlier that week, to ease May-Li's worries about his cancer metastasising, Ryan had had a PET scan, which had shown that no new tumours had grown anywhere and the fever was merely due to the action of interleukins.

But right now, it felt like the astrocytoma had seeded itself in his breastbone and a new tumour was growing in a matter of seconds, filling up most of his thoracic cavity and pushing his heart and lungs and trachea out of place.

He turned to May-Li. "Catch me."

"What?"

With that, Ryan's legs buckled and his vision left him as he fainted dead away.


	17. Be Careful What You Wish For

The first thing May-Li noticed when she caught Ryan's collapsing body was how light he was. Not so light as to induce serious concern for his health - well, any _more_ serious concern for his health - but still noticeable. It wasn't hard to see why - cancer, along with its many treatments, often came with a loss of appetite. Even if it didn't, aggressive, fast-growing gliomas were like black holes when it came to calories. She hoped that'd be taken care of once he got better.

Trying to ignore the stares from everyone currently in the foyer, she tried shifting Ryan into a more comfortable position, but her ministrations appeared to have pulled at his back as he let out a small wince, his eyes easing themselves open to focus on her face.

He was silent for a few long seconds before he realised what had happened and said in a dry whisper, "You better not have called an ambulance for me."

May-Li actually let out a laugh at that, partially out of relief. "No, you were only out for about fifteen seconds, not long enough for us to do anything."

"... Is this normal?" Karen asked quietly. Needless to say, she felt extremely awkward as well as confused. As far as she could see, the reactions of the people around them were worried, but not entirely surprised, and this only heightened her interest.

"I think it's best we take this somewhere quieter," Mike suggested quickly, gesturing for her to follow him to the quiet room. She did, Chloe on her tail. May-Li handed Ryan back his cane, which had clattered to the floor when he fell.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," May-Li murmured, more to herself than to Ryan. "I understand if you don't want to see her right now, do you want to get away and rest for a bit? You look a little woozy."

Ryan shook his head adamantly in response, ignoring the slight dizziness that came with it. "No, I want to see her face when she finds out."

May-Li sighed. "If you're sure," she said, helping him stand. If she was honest, she couldn't say she wasn't a _little_ unnerved at the fact that Ryan was planning to take pleasure in his mother's reaction to his illness, but she supposed that was the least of their worries.

They reached the quiet room just as Mike was explaining to Karen what was happening to Ryan.

"... he started getting back pains a few months ago, and they weren't getting any better, so we took him to the hospital for some tests," Mike's voice said as Ryan opened the door and walked inside, wordlessly taking a seat on the sofa next to Mike and opposite his mother and Chloe, making it clear he was staying. Nonetheless, the man continued. "What they found was ..." he trailed off, suddenly acutely aware of the boy's presence next to him. "Do you want to finish it?" he asked, turning to him.

"It's cancer," Ryan said bluntly.

Sure enough, Karen's reaction was worth seeing. Her whole face paled and her eyes widened until they looked like they were about to pop right out of her head. Her shaking hand founds its way to her mouth as if to stop herself from screaming or sobbing out loud.

"Anaplastic astrocytoma, grade 3, growing right here in my spinal cord," Ryan continued, hammering it in further. "Leeching off of my nutrients, taking over my body, and the only way to stop it is to-"

"Ryan!" Mike interrupted, using a firm tone of voice and an equally firm hand on Ryan's shoulder. "We get the point, now stop upsetting your mother. It's not her fault."

 _Stop upsetting my mother?!_ screamed Ryan's inner monologue. That was the last straw. He stood up, paraparesis be damned, and stared everyone down. "Mike, you've got no right to say that to me. I'm the one who's upset. She may not have given me cancer, but she sure as hell infected me with some sort of toxicity. She left me - left both of us - when we were vulnerable, and now look at us! Don't you see what she's done?! _My whole life was literally a lie!_ "

Chloe swallowed anxiously. She'd known this was coming - the moment where her brother would come face to face with their mother for the first time in almost a decade, after everything she had done and everything he had gone through because of it. Chloe had been bracing herself for this moment - she knew it was going to be ugly - but it still wasn't enjoyable.

"I-I didn't ..." Karen stuttered, before being interrupted by Ryan's rant yet again.

"Didn't what? Didn't look after us like a good mother? Didn't take on that responsibility? Damn right you didn't," Ryan spat. "No, drowning yourself in alcohol is always the best way to deal with problems. To Hell with the well-being of your kids, right?!"

"Ryan!" Chloe yelled, feeling she had to intervene before it went too far. If Ryan wouldn't listen to their mother, he would at least listen to her. "Sit down, let her talk."

"I've been waiting my whole life to say these things," Ryan said through gritted teeth.

That wasn't quite true - he'd only been wanting to say those things for much of the past year, but the words held many more years of guilt. The basis for the guilt may have been false, but the guilt itself had been very real, weighing down on him without ever letting up.

Over the years, the guilt had aged like wine in a bottle, but on the day he was forced to confront it, the bottle had been opened and the wine inside exposed to the air. He was spared from drinking it by the revelation that that guilt was unfounded, but that meant the wine was now steadily turning to vinegar upon being exposed to the air as the ethanol was oxidised to ethanoic acid.

By now, the guilt had been oxidised to anger, the contents of the bottle had been poured out and a bitterly sour taste had been left in everyone's mouths because of it. You can bet that Karen was forced to drink most of the acerbic contents, a stark reminder of the many times in the past where cracking open a bottle had led to undesirable results.

"My entire life, I've been fighting," Ryan continued, his tone calmer - still clearly angry, but with a touch of melancholy added to it. "Fighting to keep Chloe and myself alive, then fighting to hang onto what little sanity I could cling to while in a strange place where everyone treated me like scum, and now, I'm literally fighting for my life against my own body cells destroying me from the inside. But yeah, you're right, Mike, it's _so_ much more upsetting for her to hear about all this than actually going through it!"

At that point, even Ryan could feel his energy flagging and he sat down to avoid fainting again. He wasn't done though, and he could already feel how much strain it would be on him in his sick state. He felt he would have to borrow spoons from tomorrow to get through today, and that he'd be lucky if he could even do more than make it downstairs for breakfast.

"Can I talk now?" Karen asked tersely.

"Spit it out."

"You're right, I don't know what it's like for you going through something like that," Karen began, "but don't you dare think that I'm just hearing about it from you now."

It was then Ryan remembered ...

"Your father had cancer, too," she said. "It wasn't long after you were born, Chloe, that he came down with it. I can't quite remember everything properly," - Ryan bit back a snide comment about how she must've been too wasted to remember much of anything - "but I think it might've been the same type of cancer you have now but in his brain instead of his back. The doctors tried everything they could, but in the end, they just had to let it run its course." She took a deep breath. "The point is, seeing your father like that was one of, if not the hardest things I've ever gone through, and seeing him like that, and having to somehow explain to you what was happening, Ryan, it was ... tough, to say the least."

"You never told me that," Chloe said to no one in particular, her voice containing a mixture of surprise and betrayal.

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "Really? After living without a father for years, you never asked what happened to him? Or did she just not tell you?" he asked, shooting Karen a glare.

"She told me he got ill and died when I was a baby," Chloe explained, quickly, "but she never told me what he died of, and I didn't know you had the same type of cancer." She paused briefly, realising something - Ryan didn't seem nearly as surprised as he probably should've been at the anecdote about their father. "Wait, did you know all this time, and you never told me?!"

"I didn't want to worry you!" Ryan protested. "It was bad enough knowing I have cancer, the minute you find out that our dad died from it, you'd be acting like I didn't stand a chance at beating it!"

Even Karen had the decency to not say out loud that she thought he really didn't stand a chance at beating it. Despite treatments advancing over the course of around twelve years, gliomas were still notorious for how aggressive and difficult to treat, much less cure, they were.

"I wouldn't have given up on you, Ryan," Chloe said.

"Well, thanks, but this is cancer we're talking about, Chloe. It doesn't care what you think or believe or want to happen. It just takes and takes and takes until it leaves you empty. In fact, you know what? Maybe it's for the best that I got it. At least if I'm six feet under I'll be away from our sorry excuse of a mother," Ryan spat, his voice so concentrated with venom that he could practically taste it, before getting up off the sofa and storming out of the room and up the stairs to his room, adrenaline making this less taxing than it normally was for him.

He briefly noticed the group of people standing directly outside the quiet room, obviously listening in, but he was too riled up to care. He felt his emotions rolling around and crashing together inside of him like a relentless thunderstorm.

He barely even realised he'd punched the wall of his room until one of his skating posters fell from the wall and a sharp shot of pain shot through his knuckles and wrist.

It felt nice, though. Really.


	18. What's In a Name?

**The name Constantine for Ryan's father, as well as his former job as a policeman, came from Linneagb and appeared in Ryan's chapter of her story How They Ended Up In Care, which is in the Story of Tracy Beaker fandom. I highly recommend it.**

 **Speaking of the lovely Linneagb, she's cast Sadie Sink as Rosemary's "actress" for this, so thanks to her for that.**

 **I'd also like to give a shoutout to CharlieSMarts12 for taking the time and effort to review most chapters of this. Go check out their writing some time, I recommend Checkmate.**

After Ryan had left the quiet room in a state of tumultuous emotion, Mike, Karen and Chloe just sat there for a long moment, staring at the way he had left.

Finally, Mike said, "Do you want some tea, or coffee, or anything?"

"Coffee would be nice, thank you," Karen said. "Milk, one sugar," she clarified quickly as the man got up and walked out, leaving the mother and daughter sitting quietly together.

"I'm sorry," Chloe mumbled, looking down at her knees.

"What for?"

"That he was so rude."

"It's not your fault," Karen sighed, wrapping an arm around her. "You can hardly blame him, either. Bearing a burden like that for so long, and having cancer on top of that, I guess it was all just building up, waiting to come out."

Chloe debated internally on whether to tell her mother about her brother's wish to see her purely so he could give her Hell over what she had inflicted upon him, both directly and indirectly. As much as she agreed that Karen's egregious lie was a terrible thing to do to a child that had led to the accumulation of many negative results over the years, she was still her mother, and within her clear memory, Karen had always gone out of her way to do her best by her.

That was until she had left her to go to America with her new boyfriend, Calvin, three years ago, but even then, she had promised Chloe that when the time was right, they would all be reunited and would live a wonderful life in America together. It was a dream that Chloe had held on to, that comforted her whenever she felt lonely in care. It had certainly thrown her for a loop to discover what her mother had done, that she had her own closet skeletons.

Now, here she was, confronted with a choice, and it was harder than all the troubles that came with paraplegia put together.

The door opened and Mike walked back in, holding three mugs. He placed one in front of Karen and another in front of Chloe, full of something she recognised as hot chocolate, though she really wasn't in the mood for it. Her mother, however, accepted her coffee gratefully, taking a long sip of the caffeinated drink.

"I'm sorry he was like that," Mike sighed, sipping his own coffee.

"No, it's alright," Karen replied, looking downcast. "I don't know what other reaction I could've expected, really." Then, she smiled a little. "He reminds me so much of Connor, it's almost spooky. When he was growing up, he grew to look more and more like him, and when he died, sometimes ... just looking at Ryan was enough to break my heart. I know, what a thing to say about my own son," she said, letting out a mirthless laugh.

"Who's Connor?" Chloe asked though she had a good idea already.

"Your father," Karen replied. "Well, his full name was Constantine, but he hated that name and always insisted on being called Connor. He said he didn't want to sound like a dictator - ironic, considering he used to be a policeman."

"Tell me more about him," Chloe said.

"I'd love to, but I'd rather have Ryan hear it too," Karen said. "He deserves to know."

Meanwhile, said boy had taken a seat on his bed, breathing heavily in a poor attempt to calm himself. Every muscle in his body was as tense as a rock - even his normally weak legs were tense with spasticity. He knew he would have few spoons once the adrenaline wore off, but at this point, he hardly cared if he lost every single spoon he would've had for the rest of his life. He felt like an electric kettle that was steadily raising the temperature of the water inside of it, just moments from boiling over.

A knock on his door finally sounded, He ignored it, as he did the calls of the knocker, who turned out to be Mike. The man opened the door anyway - to reveal himself as well as Karen and Chloe behind him.

Most electric kettles automatically turn off when they reach boiling point, but people aren't like electric kettles, least of all Ryan.

"Don't you see what she's done?!" Ryan yelled immediately before Mike could even open his mouth. "My whole life, my entire childhood, completely dashed to pieces because of her! Everyone around me treating me like I was worth less than nothing! Getting the living crap beaten out of me by the other kids in a place I didn't belong - _and for what?! For something I never did!_ "

When his audience was left too stunned by this to react verbally, he continued. "Think about it, really think about it for a minute. You have an innocent kid accused of GBH, taken away from everyone and everything that he'd ever loved and cared about, and spending most of his growing years being treated like he was evil. You don't need a degree in psychology to realise what that can do to a kid. Don't you see? I never got the chance to have a normal childhood, filled with love and support" - he neglected to mention Owen's family as that had gone down in flames - "and instead I was left in the dust, left to somehow claw my way out - and guess what, to claw your way out of the dust with no help, you have to get your hands dirty."

He started laughing, even as his eyes filled with tears. "Now look at me - filthy, tarnished, malignant as the mass growing inside of me. I can't function properly, I have to have control, show people who's boss, make them scared of me! Even my own body hates me and is trying to destroy me. Guess what?! I didn't even have to go through all that, I didn't have to turn out like this, but here I am, corrupted beyond repair! _She_ made me this way, don't you see what she's done to me?! _Look at me!"_

Seeing Ryan in the midst of uncontrollable hysteria was easily the most disturbing and heartbreaking thing Mike and Chloe had ever seen (for Karen, it came tied with seeing her daughter lying broken on the pavement with a shattered spine). His shoulders were convulsing with violent sobs, which were coming out sounding like each one had the potential to clog up his trachea. Each shake caused waves of pain to flow down his back and legs and he could practically feel the spoons falling from him during his rants and breakdown, but he almost wanted to run out, if for no other reason than to have an excuse to crawl into a hole and never get up again ( _You're thinking of a grave there,_ said his inner monologue).

He felt a hand placed awkwardly on his shoulder, presumably Mike's, but he pushed it back almost immediately and turned away from the doorway, manually manoeuvring his spastic legs the way Chloe did with her paralysed ones and pulling them to his chest. "L-leave me."

"Ry-"

 _"Leave me!"_

With a sigh, Mike closed the door on the shattered boy, before turning around to see that his company had increased. In addition to Karen and Chloe, all the other young people, as well as May-Li, had come up the stairs to see what all the commotion was.

"Guys, go back downstairs, or wherever you want to go," he instructed wearily. "He needs to be alone for a bit, alright? Just ... leave this matter to us."

There were no protests from the group as they dispersed, which wasn't surprising as they all looked just as stricken as he felt. They all knew that Ryan's relationship with his mother was far from stable considering what happened, but this ...

***  
It wasn't until around an hour and a half later that Ryan finally emerged from his room, having cried himself to sleep earlier, with five spoons to use. He didn't want to look in the mirror for fear of what he might see, but he knew he probably looked like a mess, his eyes still stinging and probably bloodshot.

Preferably, he would've stayed holed up in his room, but the whole building felt stifling to him, the air heavy with unease - or was that just him? Ryan didn't know, but he needed to get away, lack of sufficient spoons be damned.

He took out his phone and texted:

 _Can I come over?_

The reply was fast, thankfully. The other boy must've been waiting to hear from him, knowing he was going through a difficult time - well, more difficult than usual.

 _F: Sure, when?_

 _R: Later today_

Locking his phone, he cautiously made his way downstairs. The foyer was empty, but the voices coming from the kitchen were clear.

"... a good mother to Chloe, he doesn't have to go with them," Mo said.

"Yeah but what about the rule about not splitting up siblings?" Finn pointed out.

"That didn't stop them taking me away," Sasha commented, rather resentfully.

"Yeah, and these would probably be 'exceptional circumstances'," agreed Kazima. "I mean, they don't have the best relationship _and_ he's sick."

"Sick is right," Bailey agreed. "Sick in the head. Did you see him back there?"

"We all did, and heard him," Floss said.

An icy waterfall plunged over Ryan, making him tremble alarmingly. They had all seen him at his lowest and he'd been too out of it to even notice. What was happening to him? Had the cancer already affected his brain?

Stumbling over to the office, he pushed the door open to find Mike and May-Li sitting with his mother and Chloe. They all noticed his pallor and the fact that he was shakier than normal.

"I need to go. Sorry, I just can't be here right now."

***  
Only half an hour later, Mike had dropped him off outside Finley's house, agreeing that the boy needed some space and the support of a friend. As Ryan had found out from a text conversation with Finley to tell him he was coming, it wasn't safe for Finley to come to the DG due to leukaemia and chemotherapy rendering him immunocompromised and vulnerable to any infections that could easily spread in a house full of children and teens.

"Give us a ring when you're ready, yeah?" Mike said. Ryan nodded, making his way to the house and knocking on the door.

It wasn't Rosemary that greeted him at the door this time, but Finley himself. He'd been expecting Ryan's arrival, but his eyes still widened when his eyes fell on the state of the other boy.

"You okay?" Finley asked, despite knowing the answer.

"Not really," Ryan admitted.

"Come in, please," Finley said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and leading him into the sitting room, where Rosemary was sat on the armchair staring at her phone.

"Hey Rosemary, give us some space?" Finley said, sitting down on the sofa with Ryan.

"Can't, my sciatica is playing up," the girl said, not looking up.

"Your sciatica is bad?" Ryan replied incredulously.

Hearing his voice diverted her attention from her phone and she locked it and sat up straighter. "Hey, didn't know you were coming."

"Yeah, he's going through something rough, so can you give us some space?" Finley urged.

"What if I could help?" she said back, cocking her head slightly.

"Doubt it," Ryan scoffed.

A knock on the living room door sounded, even though it was already open, and Cynthia poked her head through the doorway. "Perhaps I could?"

Ryan sighed. "Look, I appreciate you trying, but you can't solve this. Not all of it anyway. It's a lot."

Cynthia took in the Scouse boy's still noticeable pallor - on par with her son's sickly one - and his slumped shoulders. He looked drained, physically and emotionally, and her much-exercised maternal instincts kicked in. "It might help to talk about it," she said, walking over and sitting down next to him.

"Mum, don't be so nosy," Finley said. "He might not want to relive it."

"No, it's alright, " Ryan said quietly, even as his eyes started pricking with tears at the reminder. "I need to talk about it, otherwise I think I might break something."

Twenty minutes filled with hugs, sympathetic looks and gentle encouragement later, all had been spilt and Ryan was slumped heavily against the back of the sofa, looking like he was miles away as his three supporters processed everything he had told them, their expressions a mixture of concern and horror.

Finally, Cynthia spoke up. "You're right, Ryan, this is a lot to handle, especially for someone your age. I appreciate you need emotional support during this time. But I think it's best that you talk to your carers about this. They most likely know more about the matter than we do, they'll be able to do more to help."

"What, so he comes to us for help, you offer help, and then you say you can't help?" Rosemary said hotly.

"Yeah, you're a teacher, mum," Finley added. "This can't be the first time someone has come to you about a bad home life."

"Yes, but as Ryan isn't my student, I'm not in the position to get him the necessary help," Cynthia explained, regretfully. "All I can offer is advice, and my advice for him is to leave this to the professionals."

"What? Mum, I'm not leaving a friend in need!" Finley protested.

Cynthia narrowed her eyes. "Finley Benjamin Albaston, don't you take that tone with me, you're not the only one who's had to help other people with very difficult problems."

Her own tone of voice was like sharp icicles. They all knew exactly what she meant. "I'm sorry, Mum," Finley said, looking down sheepishly.

"It's alright," Cynthia sighed. "Look, just don't bite off more than you can chew," she said simply, before leaving.

"... Is she saying I'm a burden?" Ryan asked, after a long, awkward silence.

"No, of course not," Rosemary said hastily. "Sorry if she came off like that. It's just ... you know we can't do much about the root of the problem, right?"

"Can't argue there," Ryan said with a dry chuckle. "I'm not asking you to solve my problems, I guess I just need a break, spend some time away from everything."

"Always happy to provide," Finley smiled, wrapping an arm around Ryan's slender shoulders, letting the younger boy nuzzle into him.

"Thanks," Ryan mumbled in response, resting his slightly aching head on Finley's bony shoulder, closing his eyes momentarily (and therefore missing the knowing smirk Rosemary threw at Finley) before changing the subject. "Your middle name is Benjamin?"

"Well, yeah, that's what Mum said," Rosemary said.

"I know," Finley said. "I think it was the name of one of my great-uncles. We're silver spoon children, I know."

"Whatever, my middle name is even worse," Ryan said, before immediately regretting it. Now, he was more or less condemned to tell them.

"Let's hear it then," said Rosemary, sitting up straighter.

"No way, you'll just laugh."

"Ry, my middle name is freaking Diantha," Rosemary said. "We're not judging here."

"Fine," Ryan sighed. "If you must know ... it's Constantine."

Much to his disappointment - though not to his surprise - both Rosemary and Finley struggled to hold back their snickers. "Yeah, I hate it too."

"Constantine, like the emperor?" Rosemary giggled.

"Constantine, like my father," Ryan said, a shadow passing over his expression. "He died when I was three, from the same thing I have now."

"Damn," Rosemary said quietly, looking rather stricken. "Is that why you're so determined to not die from this?"

"Rose, that's enough," Finley mitigated, squeezing Ryan's shoulder. "Don't remind him of that, this is tough enough for him."

Rosemary narrowed her eyes. "It's Rosemary, not Rose," she ordered, as firmly as a thirteen-year-old could muster when making a trivial demand. "A rose is a flower, rosemary is a perennial herb. There's a difference, alabaster boy."

"What type of alabaster am I then, since you're so pedantic about semantics?" Finley retorted. "The gypsum or the calcite variety*?"

Rosemary stared at him blankly. "... I'm thirteen."

"Point taken."

"It doesn't matter," Rosemary said finally. "I mean, what's in a name anyway?"

"Got that right," Ryan agreed. "A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet after all," he added, smirking.

Rosemary facepalmed. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

 ***Chemically speaking, the mineral known as "alabaster" has two chemical forms. Geologists refer to only gypsum type (gypsum being the common name for hydrated calcium sulphate) as "alabaster", but modern alabaster (which, ironically, is also ancient alabaster) is more likely to be the calcite type (aka calcium carbonate). This is due to their differing hardness - gypsum alabaster is softer and more fragile than calcite alabaster, being so soft that it can be scratched by a fingernail, so if Finley Benjamin Albaston really were made of alabaster, it makes sense that he'd be the gypsum type.**


	19. Liminal Spaces

**Tomorrow, I leave for university, Newcastle to be exact, to study biomedical sciences. This might be my last chapter for a while, since I'm probably gonna be bogged down with studying and extracurriculars. Thank you all for sticking with me x**

It often occurred to Ryan that the presence of Finley in his life, especially since getting sick, was like a bright oasis in his desert of dull misery. Or like a commercial break of happiness cutting into the middle of the continuous series of train wrecks that was his life. At no point did this ring more true than in the afternoon spent with him after temporarily escaping the tempest of anger and bitterness and sheer _injustice_ that had taken place at the dumping ground.

They had spent the first part of the afternoon watching another movie - not _Deadpool_ this time due to Ryan's lower spoon count, opting for the relatively simpler _Spirited Away_ instead. The film was still mesmerising, however, with its surreal yet stunning visuals and atmosphere making it a relaxing yet immersive watch.

Finley had confessed to him afterwards that he and Rosemary had once tried watching _Grave of the Fireflies_ , a film by the same studio, and hadn't been able to handle it more than once.

"It's the only film I've ever watched that cost me all my spoons for the day," he said. "You have a younger sister, right Ryan?" A nod. "Don't go near it, especially not while you're still sick. You've been through more than enough without an experience like that added to it."

Even though Finley was warning him about a mere film, Ryan found it rather endearing how Finley was trying to preserve what little emotional stability he still had.

Dinner time rolled around not too long after and Ryan realised he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, which was probably contributing to his premature fatigue. Cynthia, of course, was all too happy to rectify this, serving them homemade mac and cheese, something Ryan was grateful for as he hadn't informed her of his vegetarianism.

It was shortly after dinner finished and they were still in their chairs at the table that Rosemary suggested they go up to her room to play video games, which sounded good to Ryan apart from the whole _going up the stairs_ part, and he expressed as such.

"Want me to carry you?" Rosemary offered, semi-jokingly.

"I'd like to see you try," Ryan snorted, before two arms snaked under him and he was lifted with apparent ease. "What the hell?!"

"Yeah, she's really strong," Finley said, looking thoroughly amused at the sight before him.

"No, I'm not, you're both just really light," Rosemary insisted, starting to make her way out. "Seriously, I probably weigh more than either of you two."

It was Ryan's turn to look amused at Finley now.

"Not one word," Finley muttered, walking past them on their way to the stairs, visibly miffed.

"Not that I'm blaming him, but he's lighter than you," Rosemary whispered to Ryan, placing him back on his feet at the top of the stairs.

"Thanks," Ryan said hastily, trying not to let the fact that he had to be carried by a girl two years younger than him get to him.

They made their way into Rosemary's room, which was considerably larger than Finley's, which, as the girl explained, was due to the room once containing two beds when she'd shared the room with their older sister, Charlene, before the latter had moved out for university and then staying out when she moved in with her boyfriend.

The room now was reasonably tidy save for the one remaining bed being left unmade ("Bed bugs survive longer in beds that are made, I'm doing a good thing here."). There were a few large stacks of Blu-Rays and video games on the floor by her TV and a bean bag chair in front of it with a rounded, very fluffy white cushion sprawled out on it.

Strangely, Rosemary didn't sit down at this, opting instead to sit on the floor and directing the boys to do likewise. Soon, they were all engrossed in the task of beating each other at the various games offered by Wii Party.

Halfway through their fun, they heard the sound of the door brushing against the carpet as it opened. They all looked up in surprise, but it turned out to only be Harriet, who was evidently looking for attention. She prowled softly in front of them, brushing deliberately against their knees, before she reached the bean bag. She then stood on her hind legs, leaned her front paws on the seat and batted her nose against the white fluffy pillow lying on it. Suddenly, the pillow lifted and shook its head and two gooseberry-green eyes blinked up curiously at her.

It made sense now why Rosemary hadn't sat down on the bean bag.

"How many cats do you have?" Ryan asked, his voice containing a hint of disbelief.

"Just two," Finley replied. "Harriet and her big sister Cecelia over there."

"C'mon Cee, go play with Harry," Rosemary coaxed, reaching over to rub the white cat's soft head. Cecelia just looked around languidly, before batting a paw at Harriet dismissively and tucking her head under her paws, resuming her interrupted nap.

Rosemary sighed. "Honestly, she's such a prima donna, it's ridiculous."

Harriet appeared to have lost interest in her sister after that as she then turned her attention to the three humans, meowing at them a few times before nuzzling against Ryan's thigh. He reached out and stroked the length of her body, which she responded to by arching her back into his touch, purring slightly.

Ryan preferred cats over dogs not only because of his negative experiences with them in the past, but because, in a way, he felt similar to them. Both of them often seemed aloof and haughty, with their heads and tails held high in the air, and always seemed to have some sort of goal or agenda in mind in whatever they were doing. Both preferred to be self-sufficient and independent, naturally solitary creatures, but could connect with the right people, and always gravitated to those people in times of need.

Eventually, they went back to playing their game, and time ended up passing by so fast that when Ryan's phone vibrated in the middle of them playing a video game and Mike's name appeared on the screen, he was surprised to notice that it had already gone 7 pm. Nonetheless, he picked up. "Hello?"

"Ryan, you've been away for over 6 hours, is everything alright?" came Mike's voice, his tone a mixture of concern and annoyance.

"Everything's fine, I'm great, actually," Ryan admitted, unable to hide the smile in his voice.

"Oh good," Mike said, letting out a sigh of relief. "Do you feel ready to come back?"

Ryan's stomach dropped at the thought and his smile dropped just as fast. Despite the fact they couldn't see each other, Mike caught on to his troubled silence. "Erm ... spoons?" he asked, after a moment of hesitation.

"... I think I only have one left," Ryan murmured, only just now realising this.

"Oh," Mike said, sounding rather put out. "Can you ... make do with that?"

"No way," Ryan said quickly. "Need one for getting back, one for the stairs and one for bedtime."

"I could-"

"No."

"You don't even know-"

"You're not carrying me," Ryan said, ignoring his companions' raised eyebrows at this.

"Well, it's that or you have a very difficult time getting home tonight, unless you have more spoons tucked away somewhere," Mike said, starting to lose his patience.

Ryan knew he could always borrow tomorrow's spoons, but considering how taxing today had been, he could sense that the next day would be just as draining and he would need all the spoons he could cling to.

Just the thought brought back all the strong emotions from that morning. Ryan swallowed them down quickly, before saying, "Can I ring you back? I'll just be a minute."

Mike sighed. "Fine, but don't be too long, please."

Ryan hung up and let the hand holding his phone fall, the phone slipping out and landing on the carpet with a small thud.

"You okay?" Rosemary asked, catching on to his change of mood. "It's okay if you have to go back."

"I don't think it's like that," Finley said to her. He'd been sitting next to Ryan and so was able to decipher small pieces from the voice on the other end.

"I don't wanna go back," Ryan mumbled. "Not yet. I'm just ... not ready to deal with all that again."

"It's pretty late," Finley pointed out. "Will your mum still be there at this time?"

"Probably not, but they saw me lose my shit. I don't wanna be treated like I'm made of glass - or should I say, alabaster," he added, with a hint of jest. "And also, I only have one spoon left and I don't want to borrow from tomorrow."

"Ah," Finley said, looking down. "That complicates things a bit."

Rosemary stared at them for a few seconds, the gears turning in her head, before suggesting as if out of the blue, "Do you want to stay here for the night?"

Both boys looked sharply at her. "What?!" Ryan let out.

Rosemary shrugged. "I mean, you don't have the spoons or the inclination to go back and we're more than happy to have you. Why not?" she explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which, when she put it like that, it probably should've been.

"I-I don't wanna impose," Ryan said, though his heart wasn't really behind it. He wouldn't admit it, of course, but the idea of spending more time with Finley and less time away from the dumping ground sounded _really_ appealing to him.

"You won't be," Rosemary said. "Here, I'll ask Mum for you." With that, she got up and sauntered out of the room. They heard her and Cynthia's indistinct voices from a few rooms away, before their footsteps indicated their return to the bedroom.

"We'll be happy to accommodate you for the night, Ryan," Cynthia said when she appeared in the doorway, "but I'll need to let your carer know. Could I possibly have their number?"

Ryan nodded, pulling up the home number for Ashdene Ridge on his phone and passing it to her. She called the number and left the room while she negotiated with Mike.

"Do you wanna go to bed early?" Finley asked Ryan once Cynthia was out of earshot. "You said you only have one spoon left."

"That I do," Ryan agreed. "How many do you have?"

"Three," Finley said. "Wait, where are you gonna sleep? We don't have a spare room, sorry."

"I can just sleep downstairs on the sofa, no big deal," Ryan said, waving a hand.

"I wouldn't recommend that," Rosemary chimed in, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Take it from someone with sciatica - sleeping on a sofa instead of a real bed is not great for your spinal health. You will wake up with your back hurting way worse than usual."

"It's only for one night, no big deal," Ryan said.

"It is when you have cancer," Finley replied. "Take it from a long-term spoonie - it is always better to sleep in a real bed when you're trying to save spoons. Believe me, you need as many as you can get."

"So, what are you-" Ryan began, before it clicked with him. "Are you asking me to sleep with you?"

"Well ... yes," Finley admitted, feeling his face heat up as blood rushed to his normally pallid cheeks. "But only if you're okay with it," he added hurriedly.

Ryan was silent for a long moment, contemplating this option. Normally, sleeping in the same bed as someone else wouldn't have been a big deal to him, but the idea of being so intimate with _Finley Albaston_ of all people ...

Cynthia walked back into the room to hand Ryan his phone back. "Your carer says it's fine, so long as you arrive back by midday tomorrow," she informed them.

"Right," Ryan said with a nod. "Thanks, by the way, for letting me stay here."

"It's no trouble at all," Cynthia smiled. "I'll leave you to make yourself at home," she finished, before leaving.

* * *

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Finley asked, as they lay down together in Finley's narrow bed after having washed and brushed.

"You're the one who insisted I sleep in a real bed - you and Rosemary," Ryan yawned, struggling to keep his eyes open. His last spoon had been all but spent, leaving his body aching and totally leaden. He'd been lent a clean pair of Finley's pyjamas for the night and they were slightly baggy on him, but the looseness on him felt comforting also, like he had space to breathe and stretch out - if stretching out didn't make him feel like he was being literally stabbed in the back.

It was just as well, he didn't want to disturb his bunkmate, who badly needed his own spoons. "I'm just glad you're letting me stay here with you," he let out, his lethargic state putting a damper on his brain-to-mouth filter.

"It's the least we can do," Finley replied. "You've been through so much crap, I'm surprised you're still standing after all that."

"'Standing'?" Ryan echoed, letting out a small laugh. "Barely. I'm not even gonna come out of this standing, you know that."

"Yeah, but you'll survive," Finley said. "Wake me up if you need anything, alright?"

"No way, I'm not waking you up, you're sick too," Ryan said.

"Even if you're having a heart attack?"

"Especially if I'm having a heart attack." As it was, Ryan felt his heart thumping hard against his ribcage until it felt fit to burst. Not particularly fast, his body was too drowsy for that, but definitely strongly. They were both trying to keep to their sides of the bed, but they couldn't totally avoid invading each other's personal space, resulting in occasional brushings of skin on skin, which evoked the same fizzy feeling in Ryan as before, only this time it was warmer, inviting even.

Alcoholic drinks such as beer and champagne always seemed to bubble differently to soft drinks. The latter always made a harsh hissing sound while the former didn't. When they were drunk, the bubbles in soft drink fizzed sharply in the mouth and throat while alcoholic drinks formed a soft, pleasant froth. Ryan had never drunkalcohol for obvious reasons, but he imagined that being drunk wasn't too dissimilar to this.

"If you insist," Finley said. "Good night, sleep well."

"Night," Ryan slurred back in response. His mind was swimming between consciousness and sleep as he drifted off, so perhaps the feeling of a warm arm settling around his torso and giving him a gentle squeeze was simply part of a dream.

* * *

The soft winces and groansthat woke Ryan in the middle of the night, however, definitely weren't a dream. His eyes peeled open to reveal the darkness of the room save for the silvery moonlight peeping through the curtains. The duvet covering them both, Ryan noticed, seemed to be unnaturally tense - and this made sense when he realised that Finley was clenching it tight in both fists. The older boy's face, illuminated slightly by the moonlight and the digital clock on the bedside table that read 3:14, was screwed up in a frown, his lips pressed tightly together yet unable to keep the soft sounds from escaping. His chest was rising and falling at a noticeably regular rate, the air entering and leaving his nose in a way that seemed almost deliberate.

At first glance, it would've been easy to assume that Finley was just having a bad dream, but something told Ryan this wasn't the case. Didn't bad dreams normally cause you to squirm a bit, or at least have some tension in your body as part of the fight-or-flight response? Save for his fists, face and chest, most of Finley's body was in a slumped position. No wait, it was being pushed down into the bed, creating a noticeable dip in the mattress, and the overly-controlled breathing also gave him away. Finley Albaston was awake and in a considerable amount of discomfort, and while things remained that way, Ryan was being kept awake as well.

"Fin?"

"Shit," said boy let out through gritted teeth. "Was worried this would happen."

"What's going on?" Ryan whispered, pushing himself up and trying to ignore the pain in his back. "Should I get someone?"

"No," Finley said hastily. "Bone pain. Chemo. Wakes me up sometimes, feels like my bones are on fire."

"Damn," Ryan let out, feeling his own self burn with sympathy. Finley's description of the effects of his treatment made Ryan's back pain and radiation rashes sound like a scuffed knee one might get on the playground. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Painkillers, in my drawer," Finley explained. "Need them with water, don't bother getting it."

"Why not?"

"You can barely walk. Don't bother, just sleep. You're losing spoons."

"So are you," Ryan replied. "I'll go get Rosemary."

Before Finley could protest, Ryan had gotten out of bed (after some feeling around for his cane in the dark) and was in the upstairs hallway trying to find Rosemary's room. He found it after not too long, seeing the girl curled up in bed, her auburn hair splayed out on the pale pillow.

"Hey, Rosemary, wake up," he ordered, shaking her shoulder slightly. She let out a small murmur and shifted in response, but stayed asleep. "Rosemary," he repeated, a little louder, before an idea came to him. " _Rose_."

"Thas' not ma' name," Rosemary slurred, her voice thick with sleep as she reluctantly forced her eyes open. "What do you want?"

Ryan sighed. "Finley's in pain, he needs to drink water with his painkillers. I'd get it myself but I can't take the stairs."

She groaned. "I keep telling him he should just have water in his room before he goes to sleep." Nonetheless, she slumped her way out of bed and down the stairs to the kitchen, returning a minute later with a cup in hand. Ryan followed her back to Finley's room and watched as she gently pushed him upwards by wrapping her arm around his shoulders, helping him swallow the pills and the water. Their movements were fluid and precise, clearly from having done this many times before.

"Thanks," Finley gasped, as she brought the glass away from his lips.

"No probs," she said simply, leaving the glass on the bedside table. "The painkiller should help you sleep now, try not to keep your boyf- Ryan awake," she said, gesturing to Ryan with a nod despite the fact that Finley eyes had remained closed and her therefore couldn't see her. "Night," she whispered simply to Ryan, leaving the room for her own bed.

"How long does that painkiller take to work?" Ryan asked, slipping back into bed beside Finley and trying to ignore Rosemary's slip of the tongue.

"It's pretty strong, about 15 mins?" came the reply. "Sorry for waking you up."

"It's okay, better than leaving you in pain," Ryan said.

"Had worse. This way I know the chemo's working."

Despite this statement, Ryan felt the need to slip his hand into one of Finley's still-clenched ones. He felt the other boy grip it back like a vice, his bones digging into his flesh, but Ryan didn't flinch. Whatever pain his hand (and back and legs) felt was probably trivial compared to what Finley was going through.

"Save your spoons," were the last weakly-voiced words from Finley.

Ryan knew what he meant, but it was hard to fall asleep without worrying about waking up the next morning and finding out his hand had turned gangrenous and dropped off due to lack of blood flow. It was also hard considering how the astrocytoma was punishing him for getting up and walking while sleep-deprived.

But somehow, falling asleep was even harder when Finley finally relaxed into the mattress. He was still gripping onto Ryan's hand, as is natural for people to do in their sleep, but it was no longer so tight as to cut off the blood flow. Instead, it felt almost protective, secure. The moonlight had fallen right onto his face, the pale silver and stark shadows against his exquisite features making him look even more statuesque than ever.

It was one of those times and places where reality was slightly altered. These places were known as liminal spaces, those that were normally serving a particular purpose or activity, but not this time. Like a church where sermons were seldom ever held, or like a foggy cemetery in the late autumn dusk with the leaves quietly rustling under your feet as you walked. Quiet, like silence, but not really, like a pause during that walk in the cemetery, or like that moment after you finish reading a great book and stare off into the distance, feeling as though your mind is flying miles away from your body.

Ryan felt like he was miles away from his body right now. Even as his tumour clamoured for attention, he barely felt it. All he felt was the grasp of Finley's hand in his and the still, heavy atmosphere, punctuated by the steadfast presence next to him.

He knew this couldn't last. He knew he would have to leave Finley and return to Ashdene Ridge to see his mum and Chloe again, and the calming bubble that had formed around himself would burst.

But that hardly mattered right now.


	20. A Couple of Sick Guys

Finley Albaston was used to aches and pains. They were one out of many things that made him feel older than his teenage self. Everything from the annoying prick of the needle that began his chemo sessions to the relentless agony that woke him in the middle of the night as the cocktail of doxorubicin and vincristine and whatever else had been put into him attacked his bone marrow. These flare-ups often left a residual ache in his bones and joints that would cost him more spoons the next day and make it even harder to get out of bed.

Now, however, his dull ache and difficulty in getting up were for an entirely different reason.

Namely, the presence of Ryan's head resting against his bony chest and their hands somehow still loosely intertwined.

Finley had woken slowly, as he often did on weekends and after a rough night. Each layer of sleep had been gradually peeled off like an onion, revealing another, fresher layer underneath. Well, he seldom ever felt refreshed in the mornings, especially after a night like that when he was not only dealing with bone pain but trying to do so without disturbing his bunkmate.

Yet somehow, in spite of the weight of the other boy's head causing an ache in his chest, Finley actually welcomed waking up to one of his hands was clasped with Ryan's, his other arm had somehow found its way around Ryan's back, thankfully avoiding the site of the astrocytoma. Ryan's own arm was draped around Finley's thin torso, held there by the natural human instinct to hold onto things in their sleep.

Despite the body language that was uncharacteristically intimate for someone like Ryan, Finley still welcomed it, for the very reason that it was so uncharacteristic. Ryan was not someone who easily or willingly let his guard down or wore his heart on his sleeve - which was understandable considering everything he'd been through - meaning he didn't exactly open himself up to trust either. Being in this position with him made Finley feel special, like he had cracked the code to the near-impenetrable safe that was Ryan's personal zone of openness and trust.

He wasn't exactly sure how he'd done it, but he was glad he had.

Taking advantage of the lazy morning (and the excuse to not move his sore joints), Finley let his gaze wander to the early morning sun streaming through the gap in the curtains, watching the specs of dust floating in the light. Today would be a rare pleasant day, weather-wise, in mid-September Britain - although Finley knew that no amount of sunshine could make Ryan feel better about having to go home later that day.

The thought turned his attention back to the sleeping boy on his chest. It wasn't fair that one kid had to endure all of that crap - the neglect, the gaslighting, the verbal abuse and now the lethal cancer. Even on the verge of terminal illness, Ryan was not weak by any means - a weak person wouldn't be able to come out of all of that and still have enough spirit to fight to keep himself alive - but the thought made Finley want to pull him closer to him, as if he could pull all the fractured pieces back together and shield him from the world so that nothing and no one could hurt him ever again.

In his musings, Finley hadn't realised that he had extracted his hand from Ryan's loose grip and started fingering Ryan's shiny, light brown hair. Hair was something of a fascination for Finley, having spent a large proportion of his life without his own. He'd used to do the same thing to Rosemary until she had started giving him dirty looks for it. Ryan's hair was a different experience, however - while Rosemary's was thick and strong and often got matted and tangled due to her haste in getting ready in the mornings, Ryan's was surprisingly soft and light, like downy feathers.

He was pulled out of his musings, however, when he noticed two glazed over brown eyes staring up at him.

"Oh, damn," he let out, quickly pulling his hand away. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, I was just ..."

"'S'alright," Ryan said, his voice slurred slightly with lethargy. "Keep goin', feels nice."

With a smile and a hint of surprise, Finley resumed his petting of Ryan's hair, watching as he shifted into a more comfortable position (his head notably remaining on Finley's chest) and soft noises like purrs slipped from his lips, sounding remarkably catlike. Even his languid expression reminded Finley strongly of Harriet whenever she took up residence on his lap or torso.

"Sleep alright?" Finley asked.

"Fine ... until you woke me up," came the reply.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault, you're dealing with a bunch of shit too," Ryan said, before sighing. "I should probably apologise, bringing my own shitstorm into your life."

"I have a family to help me, you don't," Finley pointed out.

"I have Chloe," Ryan said, sounding rather put out.

"She's not really acting like a sister though," Finley replied. "I mean, actually considering going with the woman that fucked over both you and your brother for life? If our mum did something like that, we wouldn't give her the time of day."

"True," Ryan sighed, looking melancholy again and turning his head to bury his face in Finley's chest. "I wish I didn't have to go back. Wanna stay here with you."

"Me too, but you can't keep running from your problems forever," Finley said, cringing internally at how much like a _responsible adult_ he sounded. "Weren't you gonna wish for this? Seeing her again so you could rip into her?"

"That's right," Ryan sighed. "She came, I saw her, yelled at her, showed her just what she's done and ... I don't feel better or relieved or anything. I'm just ... I don't even know anymore."

Finley tightened his grip on Ryan, keeping him close and resuming stroking his hair. "Spoons?"

"I don't know," came the muffled reply. "I usually don't know until I get out of bed. You?"

"Nine."

"Nine?" Ryan echoed in surprise, turning his head so he was looking more directly at Finley again.

"Yeah, it's always less after a night like that," Finley admitted.

"Still hurting?" Finley noticed how Ryan tensed slightly as he asked this, as if aware of the pressure of his body on Finley's.

"Not too bad, nothing I can't handle," Finley insisted, tightening his grip around Ryan to keep him from trying to move away.

"You're so thin," Ryan observed, seemingly noticing this now he was more awake. Finley's sharp collarbones were exposed through the neck of his loose pyjama top and his ulna and radius bones dug into Ryan's back as Finley's arm held him.

Finley shrugged, as if it didn't bother him. "Par for the course."

The silver spoon necklace was still draped around his neck (Finley never took it off as he could never forget that he had leukaemia). Ryan reached for it and gently fingered the glass bottle. "Still, keep one in reserve, yeah?"

"Naturally," Finley replied. "That reminds me, actually." Carefully, he rolled over in bed, extracting himself from Ryan's grip (and trying not to dwell on how tightly the other boy was holding onto him) and reached for his bedside table. He opened the top drawer and took something out of it. "I meant to give you this," he said, before presenting the object in front of Ryan's curious eyes.

It was an odd charm on a silver chain, a charm of a tiny silver spoon in a glass bottle with a little pickaxe and label saying "In case of emergency, break glass" - a necklace identical to Finley's own. The glass shone in the early sunlight and was reflected in Ryan's eyes.

With a small gasp, Ryan took hold of the proffered gift. "You got this for me?"

"Just as a reminder, always keep an extra spoon close to you," Finley said. "Don't waste any on people who aren't worth you sharing them with."

"Thanks," Ryan said, his expression still one of disbelief that someone would do something nice for him - at least, without prompting or puppeteering on his part. This was elavated when Finley reached around and fastened the clasp around his neck. When he was done, he relaxed back into Finley, giving him a gentle squeeze. "You're definitely worth sharing spoons with."

Before Finley could respond to this, a knock on his bedroom door sounded. "You awake, guys?"

Finley groaned. "Get us some painkillers, then we'll get out of bed." It was a safe bet to assume Ryan needed them as well.

"I brought you some last night," she protested.

"Yeah, but they're the kind that make you sleep," Finley reminded her. "C'mon Rosemary, get a couple of sick guys some Anadin Extra, will you?"

"Fine," Rosemary groaned, walking away to find the medicine. _"_ A c _ouple_ of sick guys. You said it, not me," she muttered to herself with a private smile.

* * *

An hour later, the two boys had dragged themselves out of bed, showered, changed and made their way downstairs for breakfast (a routine that cost them three spoons each, leaving Finley with six and Ryan with nine).

"What time do you want to go back, Ryan?" Cynthia asked him.

 _Preferably never._ "I don't know ... eleven-ish?" Because if he stayed much longer than that, they would have to make him lunch too and he had already taken too much from them.

And in his heart of hearts, he knew this wasn't a problem that could be solved by ignoring it. Much like cancer, it had to be dealt with quickly and efficiently, lest it grow and spread into something far worse and out of control.

Of course, as any oncologist would tell you, that was easier said than done.

"Text me when you get back, yeah?" Finley said, when the dreaded time for Ryan to leave cams about. When the other boy just silently nodded in response, his expression kept as neutral as possible, Finley suddenly wrapped him in a spindly but firm hug. This time, Ryan responded, wrapping his one spare arm around Finley's neck, clinging on as tightly as he could - partly out of an unwillingness to part and partly him trying to keep himself stable as his weak legs and cane struggled to hold him.

"Good luck," Finley whispered in his ear, before he gently eased them apart.

Ryan was acutely aware of his heart pumping as Cynthia drove him back. He felt the blood flowing through every major artery and vein in his body, from the carotid arteries in his neck to the deep palmar arches in his wrists. His tumour was the worst offender, accentuating each pulse with a throb of pain. The pressure of the back of the car seat wasn't pleasant, but trying to sit bolt upright for long was nigh unthinkable.

"We're here, any time you need to talk," Cynthia told him as he was getting out of the car.

 _Great, let me tell you about how I really don't want face that woman and Chloe again and I'd rather someone solve the problem for me,_ said Ryan's inner monologue.

 _8 spoons._

Miks walked out of the house and met him halfway down the path before he'd even reached the door. "Hi, feeling any better?" he asked.

"A little," Ryan admitted. "Is she here?"

"... Yes," Mike replied, rather sheepishly. "She's with Chloe in the quiet room right now. Do you want to see her?"

 _No. "_ Yes."

"Okay," Mike said slowly, unsurely. Nonetheless, he turned and walked back to the house, Ryan in tow.


	21. How I Met Your Father

Around the moment Ryan had decided to leave the previous day, he remembered feeling like the very air around him was dense with awkwardness and discomfort, and the not-so-subtle rumours he'd overheard being exchanged by the others in the kitchen had done nothing to help this.

The instant he stepped back into the house, he found that absolutely nothing had changed. Well, the others were mostly minding their own business at first, but all eyes were on him the second they noticed he was back. The feeling that gathered around his defective spine was disturbingly similar to that one that lingered around him through his time at school since revealing his illness, when the other kids would still occasionally whisper behind his back and even the teachers would give him pitying looks when they thought he wouldn't notice. The thought of punching them was sorely tempting - or at least, it would've been if he still had the function and energy to do so.

He felt the small, cold weight of the spoon theory necklace Finley had given him resting on his chest. The chain and charm were both currently hidden under his crimson shirt collar, but with the thought of the other boy in mind, Ryan pressed forward through the smog of tension, feeling like a knife cutting through cold butter.

"Your father, he was ... where do even I start?" Karen's voice reached his ears from just off to the side.

"Tell me how you met," Chloe's voice replied.

With that, Ryan sharply turned and made his way towards Chloe's room, where he could detect their voices were coming from.

"Ryan, don't-" Mike tried to protest but Ryan had reached the door and invited himself in before he could stop him. His mother and sister immediately stopped talking and turned their stares to him as he entered.

All this staring was getting on his nerves. So what better than to give them a taste of their own medicine? Ryan stared intensely back at them, unblinking, as he walked as steadily as was possible for a paraparetic with chronic fatigue and sat down firmly on Chloe's bed, where the two of them currently were. "Go on," he said simply, not breaking his gaze and making it clear he wasn't leaving. Mike took the moment as his own cue to leave.

"A-alright," Karen said, unsurely, before turning her attention back to Chloe, effectively blanking Ryan. "We met at uni, many years ago, when we were both on the same architecture course. I didn't think much of him at first. He didn't really seem to stand out - he was quiet, preferring to keep to himself a lot of the time. But then by chance, we ended up sat next to each other in class, we started talking and ... he really was something," she said, with a small smile. "It was like he had so much to say, so many stories to tell, and he just needed an outlet for all that. He told me about everything from his cousins to his cats to how he preferred being called Connor over Constantine."

"Wait, you two did architecture? You told me yesterday that he was a policeman," Chloe pointed out.

"Ah, now there's a story I do remember," Karen continued. "He was helping me back home after we'd stayed out late and I'd had just one glass too many" - Ryan had to physically bite his tongue to keep himself from making a callous remark regarding her soon-to-be even worse drinking habits - "when we came across an incident in the alleyway involving two very rough-looking men intimidating a teenage boy. Lord knows what they were planning to do to him," she shuddered, "but for Connor, there was no two ways about it. He made sure I was safe leaning against the wall and stepped in to help that kid before I or those men knew what was going on. Within minutes, he had them both subdued and was calling the police on the nearest pay phone faster than I've ever seen anyone else operate a pay phone. I was still too out of sorts to be of much use, but he still took it upon himself to comfort that poor terrified kid until the police arrived. Apparently one officer said that he'd make a fine copper, and that was that for him. Within a month, he'd dropped architecture, applied to the local police force and was patrolling around in uniform*."

Karen sighed. "I missed having him in class with me, but I saw how this was what he really wanted to do. Solving the evil in the world one criminal or petty thief at the time. He worked his way up, and when I graduated a few years later, he surprised me with a deposit for our very own home, before he proposed." She smiled fondly down at the tiny silver ring that still occupied her finger, set with a subtle agate. "It wasn't a hard decision, we were married just a few short months later, but it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. I wasn't very old and I'd mostly been relying on my parents' money through uni. When I moved in with Connor, I was faced with having to stand on my own two feet properly for the first time ever. It was hard, for those first few months, and there were times when it just felt too busy to handle." She paused for breath, before looking up and looking Ryan straight in the eyes for the first time since he'd come into the room. "And then you came along, Ryan, and all of a suddenly, everything seemed to make sense."

The boy was trying his hardest to keep his expression neutral throughout Karen's story, but he couldn't stop himself blinking in surprise at her comment. "I held you in my arms, looked at you and was amazed at how much you looked like your father. You just lay there, looking up at me, like you were trying to get to know me in your own way. You didn't seem like a stranger at all. It was as if I had known you forever."

Ryan's bobbing Adam's apple betrayed the fact that he was swallowing down a lump in his throat. His frequent blinking did nothing to help hide this. Chloe reached for his hand but he snatched it away hurriedly.

"I had to take maternity leave, of course, but that was okay," Karen continued. "It was more than okay in fact, it was easier than trying to balance a job and looking after the home and all of us at the same time. Just as well, because you were a real handful, Ryan, always toddling off looking for something - often trouble. One time, you ended up getting a hold of Connor's taser** from his pocket - thank God we got that away from you in time."

 _If only you could've been so attentive in a few years,_ said Ryan's inner monologue, bitterly.

"It wasn't long before we had you, Chloe," Karen said. "You actually looked more like me, which Connor seemed to be happier about. It was less easy looking after two children than it was one, but we managed, until ..."

Karen's expression sank, as did the atmosphere in the room. "He seemed to become a whole different person almost overnight. He went from being patient and kind to irritable and snappish, even with you kids, always complaining of headaches. We tried to blame them on stress at the time, but then he started dragging his left leg and he had to start taking more time off work - you can't really chase down criminals with a limp. I kept suggesting that he see a doctor, and he said he would but he kept forgetting to do it. Then, one morning ..." Karen took a deep breath "... I heard him collapse in the bathroom, he'd had a seizure. I called the ambulance, he went in for scans, we found the tumour. We originally had it surgically removed and it seemed like he'd make it, but then it returned, and he had to stay in the hospital and have even more treatment. They tried everything, chemo, radiation, more surgery. Nothing helped. In the end, all we could do was make him comfortable in his last days. He kept telling me how much he loved me and you kids, and how he'd always be watching over us, protecting us."

 _You had one job, Dad._

"And that was that," Karen sighed. "We couldn't afford to keep our little cottage, where all our memories of him were made, and we had to move someplace cheaper that would fit into the benefits we were now living on - I still couldn't go back to work with little Chloe, see."

"But that didn't stop you going out to the pub to have a few every night of the week," Ryan pointed out coldly. "Or a few dozen."

"Ryan, don't," Chloe protested.

"You were young, Ryan, you're remembering it wrong. It was only a couple of nights-"

"Stop right there," Ryan interrupted, his voice hard. "You've said enough."

Karen flinched.

Ryan's grip trembled and another spoon slipped from him.

 _7 spoons._

A soft knock on Chloe's door sounded. "Guys, lunch is ready. You're more than welcome to join us, Karen."

"No, thank you," Karen said. "I don't want to impose."

She probably didn't want to make lunch any more awkward, but Ryan thought afterwards that it would've been hard to make lunch more awkward than it was. Everyone was giving him the same looks, like he was a grenade with the pin pulled and that he would go off at any moment.

The urge to punch them was rising again, but instead he just gave them a passive-aggressive eye roll and stared firmly down into his half-eaten vegetarian roast.

When lunch was coming to an end, May-Li walked up to him and whispered, "Spoons?"

"Seven."

"Want me to take your plate?"

"Yes, please."

"Lazy," Toni said loudly. "Just because you're ill doesn't mean you're a king."

"Yeah, you should still get up off your bum sometimes," Billie agreed.

Ryan gave them a sharp look. "Twins, I wish I still had the spoons to get up off my bum a bit more, but sadly-"

"What do you even mean by that?" Sasha interrupted. "I hear you say it all the time but I don't see what it has to do with anything."

One, two, three, four ... I can get exactly twelve here ... perfect. "Everyone bring me your spoons once you're done washing them, I'll explain it here. Chloe, get mum," he instructed, whispering the last part.

With some confusion, the others all complied after a few more minutes. Soon there was a bunch of silver spoons on the table in front of him and Karen had returned at his request.

Gathering up all the spoons in his hands like a bouquet, Ryan said, "Now, I need a volunteer."

With a shrug, Sasha sat down at the chair directly in front of him. She was the one who'd asked, after all. "What is going on?"

"Here you go - you have cancer," Ryan said, thrusting the spoons towards her.

He explained the drill that he knew like the handle of his cane by now - everything you did would cost you a spoon, so now with so few of them, you had to use them wisely.

"Only twelve?" Sasha asked, after she'd counted them at his request. "Can't I have more?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why should you? I don't get any more. Look, just go with it, just doing this is costing me another one."

They went through a day in the life of Sasha, complete with interruptions and spoon snatching from Ryan. He told and showed her how each little task had to be broken down and how he had to be stingy with his spoons just so he could do all the essentials to keep himself afloat - showering, dressing, eating, taking the stairs, going anywhere from school to the hospital to the toilet. She was forced to think more and more about what truly needed doing and what she would have to sacrifice - and the others watching were forced to think along with her.

"What will you use it for?" Ryan asked, once she was only clinging onto one spoon. "Will you eat? Shower? Change into your PJs? Something else? You can do any one of them, but you can't do them all."

At this point, Sasha was looking at the one remaining spoon like it was her baby. It was then she and everyone else in the room were remembering times where Ryan would stay in his uniform after school instead of changing, and how he would turn up to breakfast the next day with his shirt and trousers looking very rumpled - rather like they'd been slept in. This especially applied to when there was school the following day.

"Can't I ... take a nap or something?" Sasha asked, remembering the times Ryan had done the same.

"If you want to."

"I'll do that."

Ryan gave a spoon back.

"I'll use them to eat," Sasha decided, giving it back again, "and change into pyjamas." She gave back the last one. "Do you really go through that every day?"

"More or less, yeah," Ryan said, before reaching inside his collar and bringing out the silver spoon and pickaxe necklace. "And that's why I've had to learn to live with an extra spoon in reserve, because I'll never know when I truly need it." He lingered to let everyone take in the meaningful charm before shoving it back under his collar.

"Is that the reason you didn't come home yesterday?" Jody asked.

He nodded.

Tyler was frowning. "So ... it's like you only have a little bit of money, so you have to think more about how you're gonna spend it."

"Or like you're a faulty battery that runs out faster than the rest of us," Joseph added.

"That's more or less it," Ryan said, leaving the spoons on the table. They were starting to get a bit heavy to hold. "So now, will you forgive me if I sometimes need help doing things, or even having someone do them for me? Look, I wish I could still do them myself but I can't, and I just have to live with that, okay?"

His audience nodded grimly.

 ***I don't know much about how the police work, I don't know how long it takes to become one or what the training is like or if they carry tasers in this country so just bear with me on this.**


	22. The Last Spoon

**The Last Spoon**

 **Happy 2019 to all of you lovely people! Hopefully I'll be posting this just as the clock strikes midnight, in Britain anyway. I would say I hope 2019 will be a better year than 2018, but I said that this time last year and we all know how that turned out - Tide Pods, no more white rhinos and many more dead celebrities, including Stan Lee, Stephen Hawking, Stefan Karl Stefansson and Avicii, the latter of whom died on my 18th birthday!**

"So, what do you say?" Karen asked Chloe in the office room later on. "Do you feel you want to come to Kentucky with me?"

"When would I be able to move in with you?" Chloe asked, her face lighting up, but less than Karen probably would've liked.

"Not immediately, sadly," Mike said. "There's still arrangements that have to be made, protocols we need to follow, safety checks and the like. You'll need to provide us with your address in America, as well as certain details about anyone you're staying with."

"Of course," Karen said quickly. "There's just my partner, Calvin Slater. He works as a mechanical engineer in Louisville."

"What job do you have?" Chloe asked. "You said I could come to stay with you when you settled in."

"I'm a receptionist in a hotel," Karen explained. "Not a bad place at all, you should come and visit sometime."

"So, Chloe, what do you say?" May-Li asked.

Chloe opened her mouth as if about to immediately say 'yes', but then she hesitated. "What about Ryan?" Said boy was currently elsewhere after Mike had suggested that he leave Karen and Chloe to talk in private. He had obliged with heavy reluctance.

"Do you really think he'd want to come?" Karen asked her back pointedly.

"Isn't there a rule about not splitting up siblings?" Chloe appealed to Mike and May-Li, though that was a pretty feeble excuse considering her and Ryan had spent more time split up than together.

"Exceptional circumstances, Chloe," Mike reminded her. "Even if he wanted to go with you, there would still be other issues - namely, whether he'd be able to continue his treatment in America. They don't have the NHS over there. We also don't know whether he'd be fit to make the journey."

"He's not a baby," Chloe protested.

"You heard him back there," Karen said. "An eight-hour flight from here to Kentucky can be exhausting for most people. How many 'spoons' do you think it'd cost him?"

"True," Chloe agreed, before changing the subject. "How's Calvin, is he nice?"

"He is," Karen said. "He's been such a gentleman, doing everything he could to help me settle into America. You wouldn't believe all the little subtle ways things are different across the pond. One time I forgot and ended up getting served crisps with my burger because I asked for 'chips' at a restaurant*," she said, which made them all laugh. "He's always up for a good time. You'll love him, I promise. He'll never take your father's place, of course, but-"

Karen's words died in her mouth when she suddenly found herself seeing what she at least believed to be the face of her late husband suddenly present, before common sense prevailed and she realised that Ryan had merely walked back into the office without knocking, an unreadable expression on his face as he stood in the doorway.

"Ryan," Mike said, "I thought I told you to-"

"I was listening just outside," Ryan said. "You didn't really think I was gonna stand by and do nothing, do you?"

"I guess not," Mike muttered, sharing a look with May-Li. They really weren't entirely surprised, at all. "Karen, Chloe, forgive me, I just need to step out with Ryan for a bit, alright?" Without waiting for an answer, he stood up and walked out of the office and into the quiet room, motioning for Ryan to follow suit. The boy did, reluctantly being forced out of the discussion for the second time.

"Are you okay?" May-Li asked, noticing how Karen was rather tenser now.

"Would it be okay if I used the bathroom?" Karen asked.

"Sure," May-Li said. "Chloe, could you show your mum where the downstairs toilet is?"

The girl nodded, shifting back into her chair as her mum stood up and followed her out. She noted with some curiosity how Karen took a brief detour to get her handbag from the foyer but shrugged it off quickly. Maybe it was her time of the month. She led her mother into her room and let her mum use her ensuite bathroom.

 _Six spoons._

"Look, Ryan, I know that you feel close to this issue, but ultimately it's Chloe's decision whether she wants to go to America or not," Mike said, in as firm and calm a tone as he could manage. "You may not be happy about you two being split up again and I'm not saying you have to like it, but she is your sister, and you should still support what will make her happy."

"You know what else would make her happy? Heroin," Ryan said hotly. "But I should support that too, right? It doesn't make it good for her!"

"If she says she wants to go, and your mother and Calvin pass all the criteria, there's nothing we can really do to stop her," Mike said. "Besides, even if she says yes today, she won't be going anywhere for a while. It'll give you time to come to terms with it."

"Yeah, just come to terms with my whole family turning their backs on me," Ryan retorted. "Maybe I'd be better off going with Dad."

Ryan attempted to turn around and leave but Mike grabbed his shoulders and turned him back around before he could. "Don't you ever _dare_ think something like that, Ryan," Mike said, his voice as low and gravelly as stones on the river bed. "Life is far too short to wish it away, and on top of that, your family couldn't handle your father's passing. What makes you think that they'd take yours any better, hmm?"

 _Plenty of things, actually,_ said Ryan's inner monologue, but he didn't say them.

Mike sighed and let go of his shoulders. "Okay, I'm sorry for being so callous with you there, but you need to see the reality of the situation here. Yes, she hasn't been the best mother to you, and I'm not excusing her of that, but she's mostly pulled herself together in the years since the accident. Unless Social Services happen to find one, there is no reason to believe that Chloe would be worse off going with her than staying here."

It was harsh and callous, but it was true and Ryan couldn't deny it. However, instead of admitting it, he set his jaw, turned around and left the room, without Mike trying to stop him this time.

 _Five spoons._

As he did so, Chloe and Karen reappeared in the hallway, Karen looking considerably more relaxed and refreshed than before.

"So you've agreed?" Ryan asked pointedly.

"Not yet," Chloe said quickly. "I need to think more about it."

"Don't let him stop you, darling," Karen said, clapping her hand on her shoulder. "You do what you want."

"I'm not stopping her," Ryan said, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Yes you are," Karen insisted, stepping closer to him. "I know you don't want me to take my baby back with me because you can't let go of something that happened ten years ago!"

"I can't let go of it?" Ryan shot back, surprised at how confident she had suddenly gotten. "Maybe because someone I trusted let me down, messed me up for life and now has the nerve to come back and try and take away everything important to me for the second time!"

"I really must leave, it's been a long day," Karen said, stepping past him towards the door to get her coat from the hooks. But Ryan wasn't letting her escape that easily.

"Just, _why?!"_ he yelled, feeling that all-encompassing anger towards this woman filling up inside him again. "I was _five fucking years old_! How could you have done that to me?! I have to know!"

She finally stopped, put her coat back on the peg and turned around, walking back towards him until she was standing ten feet away, trying to appear as calm as possible. "Do you really want to know? If you honestly, truly want to know and are willing to listen, I'll tell you."

"Just spit it out," Ryan said firmly, his patience wearing as thin as thread.

Karen sighed. "You see ... when it happened on that day all those years ago, when I saw Chloe lying there, her little body all mangled, it was just a complete ... shell-shock, for me. Time stood still. I couldn't process anything. Then the dam broke, and I realised what had happened, and what could very well happen if we didn't do something. People had already called an ambulance, but I realised how she had slipped through my fingers when I wasn't looking, and now she could very well lose her life because of it. For that time, and for a long time afterwards, she was all I could think about, all that mattered to me. So when the paramedics came and were asking what happened, I just needed to blame someone, and before I knew it, the whole story about how I was there in the flat and how you did that to her just kind of ... slipped out."

For a long moment, Ryan stared at her, his face impassive as he mulled over this pivotal information. Impassive, that was, except for his eyes. They could practically see the pressure mounting behind them, due to explode out at any moment, and none of them were sure when that moment would be, as the split-seconds rolled by and nothing happened.

A long puff of air left Ryan's nostrils like steam from a kettle. "So, you're telling me that I was taken away from home, treated like I was evil for years and gaslit into believing I did something I never would've dreamed of ... because of a _slip of the tongue_?"

Karen was trying hard not to tremble under his gaze. She had watched Connor and his colleagues interrogating suspects and criminals in custody and thought to herself that she wouldn't like to be the one on the receiving end of his stony look of contempt. Now, she was sure she had a good idea of exactly what it felt like to be interrogated by Sergeant Reeves. She was still entitled to defend herself though. "Yes, it was a slip of the tongue ... but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense. Even if Chloe made it out alive, she would be left permanently disabled. If I had said I wasn't there, what then? You both would've been taken away, I wouldn't be allowed to see either of you, and she would've been stuck in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar body and without a clue what was happening and without me there to help her. Did you even consider that, Ryan? Not everything is about you, you know."

 _What would you do if the only way to save your daughter was to sacrifice her brother?**_

Chloe swallowed, hunching up in her chair, trying to appear as unnoticeable as possible. She started playing out in her head what her and her brother's lives might've been like had they gone into care together - what then? She only had faint memories of her figurative toddling years, but she remembered a persistent feeling of being different, left out, like she didn't quite fit in or belong. She couldn't play ball or run around or even go to the toilet properly. That came with frustration, anger, sadness in there too, like one long temper tantrum. Would that have changed if she'd been in a care home with Ryan?

Come to think of it, weren't there times when her mother had told her that she couldn't do something even though Chloe was sure she could do it? Things like playing sports, as Chloe had gotten pretty good at badminton since going into care, even though her mother had insisted that sports were totally out of the question for someone of her level of ability. Or like doing wheelies, which, while not easy to do at the beginning and could result in injury, was a necessary skill for wheelchair users in an inaccessible world full of curbs and bumps in the road. Why would her mother have wanted to limit her experiences? Was it really for her own perceived safety?

Ryan scoffed. "Well, here's some food for thought," he said, bringing his cane from the side to the front so he could lean on it with both arms. Standing for this long was really doing a number on him. "If all of this, all the lies, all the gaslighting, everything that has made my entire life a complete clusterfuck, was really just a slip of the tongue and you not wanting Chloe to be without you, I think it's time for you to wonder what I have been wondering for a long time - _what if it had been me that had fallen out of the window?"_

 _Four spoons._

There it was. The core question that had been at the front of his mind whenever he'd played the maddening game of 'what-if' with himself. From the way Karen's face paled at the very idea - rather satisfyingly, he might add - he suspected it would be just as uncomfortable for her to think about. He hoped it was.

"What would you have done then?" Ryan continued. "Run up to me screaming and called an ambulance, naturally, but what then? What would you have told the paramedics? That I threw myself out? That I was suicidal? Would they buy a kid trying to kill himself on his fifth birthday?" He almost laughed at the thought. "Oh yeah, all this shit happened on my birthday, did I forget to mention that? What would be your alibi then?"

"... What answer are you expecting to a question like that?" Karen said, after a long, very pregnant pause.

Ryan's words were like icicles.

"Definitely not an answer that said you would blame Chloe for pushing me."

His hands were shaking as they rested on his cane handle, but his gaze was frighteningly steady, even as his body started twitching with frosty laughter. "Let's face it, you would rather I had fallen back then. Well, you're not the only one. Yeah, it would've been tough, but not much tougher than what we've already been through. I've spent ten fucking years wishing it had somehow been me instead of her, and I would still give anything in the world to turn back time and stop it from happening."

"Do you think I wouldn't?!" Karen yelled suddenly. "I know full well how I've failed her, Ryan, you don't need to rub it in my face!" Then she composed herself. "But that doesn't matter, because there's one aspect of coming to Kentucky that I've just recently found out about. It's why I've decided to come back now."

"What is it?" Chloe asked, making her presence known again.

"The Frazier Rehab Institute," Karen said, saying the name reverently, like they were magic words. "The frontrunner of acute rehabilitation for all kinds of physical injuries and conditions. They're based in Louisville, where myself and Calvin live, and I've just recently found out about them and I've been reading tons about the work they do. They specialise in tons of stuff, including spinal cord injuries," she explained. "Now, before we do anything, they would need to assess you, but in the event you're eligible for their program, they could take you on! Don't you realise what this means?!" Karen asked. "You could walk again!"

Safe to say, her children did not see that coming.

"Well?" she went on. "What do you say?"

Chloe was just staring dumbly, her mouth open like a goldfish as she processed this information. She didn't remember walking. She had been jealous many a time of those who could walk, as well as go through life without the many other health problems that came with spinal cord injury. But over time, these things had just become so interwoven with everyday life for her that she could hardly imagine life without them. Her disability was just a part of her now, not defining her, but just something else she had learned to deal with, like how most children her age viewed school or doing chores.

But at the same time, how could she say no to the look on her mother's face?

Karen seemed to sense her reluctance, however. "Don't tell me that you actually ..."

"... not really," Chloe admitted, meekly. "I mean, it's not really that big of a deal for me anymore. I can look after myself and I still have a good life. I don't really need a cure. I don't think I really want a cure."

"You what?!" Karen shouted, looking utterly outraged. "How could you ..." she trailed off, and her attention turned back to Ryan. "You put her up to this, didn't you?!"

"What?!" Ryan yelled. How could he have even done it? He had never been in Chloe's presence without Karen also present since the latter had first arrived at the DG. Surely she realised that? Was she that delusional? "I didn't-"

"Don't lie, you evil little brat!" she shrieked, storming straight up to him. "How far will you go in your evil plans?!"

A foul and familiar odour suddenly assaulted Ryan's nostrils. Vaguely fruity, like sweet berries or grapes, but also sharp and acerbic, as if slightly rotten, fermented ...

Suddenly, he was four years old again, in that cramped apartment, and his mother was swinging a dark, shiny glass bottle high above her head, and he knew very well where its next destination would be. He could feel it.

 _Three spoons._

He forced himself to snap out of it. "You're drunk!"

Gasps erupted from all around him, but he was more focused on trying not to stumble over from both the weakness and the overpowering stench.

Through the sea of shock, he noticed May-Li hurriedly making her way to Karen's handbag that she had left lying on the floor. She searched through it briefly before pulling out a very recognisable dark glass bottle. Her handling of it had caused the liquid inside the slosh around distinctively, indicating the amount of empty space within its interior.

The amount of tension in the room couldn't have been cut with an industrial chainsaw.

Until Ryan felt a large amount of painful force on the left side of his face.

This kind of smack to the face would normally be enough to stun a healthy person, but for someone like Ryan, for whom standing was a struggle, it was enough to knock him to the ground completely. He landed heavily on his hip, letting out a brief groan when he rolled over onto his back.

 _One spoon. Hits are so much harder when you're sick._

Another all-around gasp. He could sense no movement around him. Even Mike and May-Li were too stunned by this violent display to react.

Ryan managed to get up, somehow. He didn't quite know how, but he found himself leaning on the wall as well as his cane to stay upright. "Get out! Leave and never come back! Fuck off back to America and stay there! I don't deserve someone like you in my life, and that's saying something, and Chloe definitely doesn't deserve it! I hate you, do you hear me?!"

She's there for a moment longer, staring at the face she had once looked at and loved, before turning around and leaving with her bag and coat, the door slamming shut behind her.

Ryan didn't notice how badly he was shaking until he tried to take a step and his legs buckled underneath him. He landed painfully on his knees, though he barely had the capacity to even wince. His cane clattered to the floor next to him, having slipped from his hand when he fell.

He vaguely heard May-Li ushering his audience out of the room, but his ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton wool. He wondered briefly if he was going to faint, though that didn't seem like the worst thing that could happen to him right now.

Mike took a good look at the boy on his knees, motionless save for slight tremors coursing through his frame and silent save for a faint panting. Ryan was gazing straight ahead where his mother had just left, his eyes glassy.

The care worker crouched down next to him and whispered, "Spoons?"

He knew the answer before it came.

" _Zero."_

He didn't remember much after that.

 ***This actually happened to me the first time I went to America, though it was at a little stand like a hot dog stand instead of a restaurant. Though I was seven, nearly eight, at the time, so I wasn't complaining too much.**

 ****This quote is actually taken from the tagline of the book My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, which is probably one of my favourite books and inspired some stuff and ideas I had in this one. I really recommend it if you haven't already.**

 **Yeah, this chapter turned out more intense than I originally planned. Hopefully I did a decent job of it though.**


	23. Raincloud

**Parts of this chapter were inspired by** **the song "Unsteady" by X Ambassadors. I really recommend it, especially the remix by Erich Lee Gravity, it's so beautiful and sad. It's originally about two brothers trying to cope through their parents' divorce, but I think it can also fit with little Ryan badly needing support as his father is dying and his mother is drifting away. Whether he gets that support is another matter entirely.**

When Ryan woke, he didn't open his eyes immediately. Partly because he didn't want to waste any more energy. He didn't know how long he'd been out cold for - that would require opening his eyes to check his watch - but, as was often, it wasn't long enough. Maybe he had a fraction of a spoon now. A handle. A bowl. Or just a small spoon. A teaspoon. An inch-long charm spoon worn as jewellery.

One thing he did notice was that he was lying on a soft surface. His bed, probably. Normally, he would've been mortified at the realisation he would've had to be carried there, but instead, he felt something akin to the ghost of mortification. Even feeling things properly seemed too much for him in his frazzled state. Right now, his brain felt like a computer that had been used too much and for too long and had now overheated and crashed.

His ears still felt like they were stuffed with cotton wool. Nothing could be processed. Time felt like thick jelly. Reality was slightly altered, like in a liminal space, or like when you go into a cinema or the theatre and it's dark when you come out.

He wasn't stupid, he remembered what happened with his mother - though she hardly deserved that title anymore - but he was too tired to really feel it. Right now it was more like a heavy raincloud hanging over him, drizzling dismally, rather than a river flooding through a broken dam.

One thing was for sure - he definitely wasn't getting up any time soon.

He would've liked to simply doze off again, sleep the night away, then get up and continue with life as if the whole weekend hadn't happened but his body wouldn't even allow him that luxury. Maybe he was hungry. Ryan didn't know, he rarely felt the pangs of hunger anymore, but if he'd been out for a few hours, then dinner time wouldn't be too far off. Not that he really had a spoon to eat dinner with. The play on words should've been funny.

Ryan's train of thought was interrupted by the sound of his door opening. He still didn't open his eyes, but the faint shuffling sound he heard approaching him indicated footsteps. He curled tighter in on himself, even though it hurt his back and legs. Great, someone was trying to interrupt his very busy evening of moping.

He felt a dip in the bed as they sat down, still not reacting.

"How are you holding up?" said May-Li's voice.

 _Well, I've just wasted all my spoons, Chloe probably hates me and the whole house saw me lose my shit. But apart from that, just chipper,_ said Ryan's inner monologue, but not his mouth.

"Are you feeling up to having some dinner?"

 _No._

May-Li made a small noise of realisation, before saying, "Oh, yeah, if this is about spoons, Mike and I have decided that you can take tomorrow off school, so you can borrow from tomorrow if you need to."

 _Fuck it._ Ryan's eyes opened, his vision blurry at first, but thankfully the light wasn't turned on, despite the sun starting to set outside the window. May-Li was sat on his bed, her face morphed into one of deep concern.

"Feeling up to having dinner?" she asked again.

He shook his head.

She sighed. "You were so, so brave back there," she said. "It's never easy to confront someone who's hurt you like that. You didn't deserve all of this. No one does."

"But I do, now," the boy murmured, not meeting her eyes. "Don't I?"

May-Li frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I'm bad," Ryan said, his voice a flat monotone that sunk further into sadness with every word. "Everything I've done, everything I touch, I destroy, even what just happened there. Chloe can't have a mother now, because I sent her away, just like she sent me away." He laughed bitterly, the sound and his subsequent words making May-Li feel vaguely nauseous. "Maybe Mum and I deserve each other."

The dismal raincloud drizzling over him started raining heavier drops.

"Hang on," May-Li said. "Not long ago, you were saying that you didn't deserve someone like her."

"I meant I didn't _want_ someone like her, doesn't mean I don't _deserve_ her," Ryan said. "I was angry, I wasn't thinking."

"You know, my grandmother once said that you should listen to people most when they're angry," May-Li said, "because that's when you'll hear the real truth from them."

"Yeah, but I'm always angry," Ryan went on. He still didn't have the strength to really raise his voice, which only made his words come out as whiny, which only frustrated him further. "I don't know how to _not_ be angry. I thought that I'd feel better if I could get everything out at Mum, then I could finally move on, live normally, but ..."

May-Li sighed, her heart aching for her young charge. "It's not always as simple as that, unfortunately," she said. "Some people can just let go and move on, but remember that those people haven't been through what you have, over a long period of time. When that happens, it's ..." she paused to think of the right way to put it. Then it came to her. "It's like ... a chronic illness. You can learn to live with it, maybe treat its symptoms, but it never really goes away."

"So, you're saying my brain was sick before my body was sick?" Ryan asked after a pause, his voice resigned.

"That's ... one way of putting it," May-Li said. "Come to think of it, it's not too different from that surgery you want. It might deal with the root of the problem, but its effects are no less real, and they'll stay with you forever."

Ryan sniffed and buried his face in his pillow, her words and their truth weighing heavily on his already aching shoulders. The raincloud poured down on him, chilling him down to his core, down to his scarred heart that had been forced to mend improperly due to lack of vital support, much like how a broken bone had to be set and splinted, otherwise it wouldn't heal straight and it wouldn't quite work properly again.

"Aww, come here," May-Li said, moving so she could place his head in her lap, gently petting his hair. "I'm so sorry, Ryan."

The gentleness of her movements overwhelmed him, temporarily sheltering him from the rain. It had been so, so long since he'd received this kind of interaction, being comforted so tenderly, like a ...

Like a _mother._

The thought overwhelmed him all over again and he shifted to hide his face in May-Li's abdomen, too depleted of energy to care anymore. If she noticed his hitching breaths or her top getting suspiciously wet, she didn't comment. She just continued to stroke his hair.

May-Li did notice, and the overwhelming _tragedy_ of the whole situation suddenly seemed to crash down on her. It wasn't anyone's fault that Ryan's father had died of a brain tumour, and as much as she condemned Karen's reaction to the whole thing, she could see that she was also a victim of the situation. She had the responsibility of looking after her two young children as well as a terminally ill partner, and she'd received little to no support, so she'd sought it in alcohol. Unfortunately, her children ended up paying more than anyone for her actions, leaving them with chronic problems that they would carry with them for the rest of their lives.

When tragedy struck, often it was tempting to find someone to blame for it, as if pinning responsibility on them meant they were the one that could somehow make it all better. But other times, especially like this, bad things just _happened,_ and not everyone could handle them and make it out okay on the other side. It was one of the rare times where she hoped vaguely that there wasn't life after death, as if there _was,_ then Connor must be feeling awful seeing his family fall apart in such a way.

His wife descended into alcohol-induced madness, his daughter physically disabled and his son left with both physical and mental conditions that would have a permanent impact on his life - if his physical illness didn't kill him first. It was possible Connor also felt guilty for almost passing on his illness to his son - who, no matter what said son believed, _didn't_ deserve it.

But the past was in the past. There was nothing she or anyone could do about it. All they could do was try and move on and heal the best they could, because they had no other choice.

She noticed that Ryan had stilled in her lap. Getting a better look, she saw that he had simply fallen back asleep, his face clammy and his closed eyelids red and puffy. She manoeuvred him into a comfortable position on his bed and - without thinking - kissed his hair, not missing how he seemed to visibly relax at the gesture. She sighed once again to herself, mentally kicking herself for not seeing what was right in front of her - that what they were dealing with was a deeply troubled teenager starved of the support and care he so desperately needed. She almost felt bad for leaving him alone at this point, but she had to see to dinner, as well as take care of some other duties.

She had a feeling of what would make Ryan feel better if nothing else would.

* * *

Ryan swam back to the surface not too long afterwards, though he realised this time it was due to a brief ruckus from downstairs. Not an uncommon occurrence in this house, but it was still annoying.

He really needed his Codeine, he was surprised he'd gone this long without it. Not only were his back and legs hurting, but now he also had a headache. He closed his eyes again to see if it would help. It didn't. The raincloud that was still raining down on him didn't help either.

And now there were more footsteps coming up the stairs, towards his room.

 _Great._

And now his door was opening again.

 _Oh, come on._

And now a voice.

"Ryback, you _idiot."_

 _Wait ..._

"Didn't I tell you not to waste spoons on people who aren't worth it?"

Ryan's eyes opened almost instinctively at the sound of that voice. The first thing that greeted his eyes was the white face mask covering most of the face that he was now seeing. But he would recognise those lashless brown eyes - those eyes that were beautiful enough without needing any help from eyelashes - and stubble-covered head anywhere.

And suddenly, the storm of fire and fury and violence just seemed so _worth it._ It didn't matter that he had effectively destroyed any and all chance of reconciliation between him and Chloe and his mother. It didn't matter that he and Chloe would be awkward for a while. It didn't matter that he was borrowing yet more spoons from tomorrow.

Finley was here.

He was here with him and everything was going to be alright because Finley could always make everything better. He shone like the sun in Ryan's dark, empty void of space. He was his stability, his shoulder, his rock. Finley Albaston and his kindness, his listening ear, his unwavering wit and charm were such that Ryan couldn't help but be drawn to him like an asteroid to a star's gravitational pull. Despite his sickly appearance, which wasn't helped by the face mask, Ryan was sure he was seeing an angel sitting on the edge of his bed.

The rain stopped. The cloud still hovered above him, but it wasn't raining anymore. He could ignore it.

Utilising a strength he didn't possess, Ryan pushed himself up into a sitting position and wrapped his arms firmly around Finley as if trying to ensure he was real and not part of some dream or delusion his befuddled mind had conjured up. His rational mind was asking so many questions - _when did you get here? What's with the face mask? Why are you here now? Did the others tell you what happened? Do you even have the spoons for this? I know I don't -_ but when Finley was here, nothing mattered except Finley.

The older boy returned his hug, allowing Ryan to lean as much of his weight on him as he needed, in spite of his aching bones. He held Ryan tighter when he noticed the trembling. Neither of them said a word, just relishing in their shared embrace as Ryan felt the tension slowly leave him. He had woken up that day in Finley's arms and he couldn't think of a better way with which to end the day.

When at long last they pulled apart, Ryan was still too out of sorts to form words, or even sit up properly, still needing to keep a hand on Finley's shoulder to stay upright, but his quizzical look at Finley said everything he needed to.

"Oh, right, you probably have some questions," Finley said with a laugh. "Your care workers called my dad earlier, asked if it was possible that I could come over, make you feel better. I wasn't surprised, to be honest, I know your mum is a nasty woman. You're lucky I was having a lazy day today, I still have three spoons now. Rosemary insisted on coming too, she gave me a lift up the stairs and she's downstairs now. We've met your sister, she's ... not like you. Your housemates filled us in on what happened and ... wow, it sounded like a bloodbath."

Ryan didn't verbally respond at first but fingered lightly the face mask hooked behind Finley's ears. "Yeah, mum was worried about me picking up all the germs in this place. She wouldn't let me go without it."

Ryan took a moment to process all this information, before saying, "They told you what happened? With mum?"

"Yes. I'm sorry you had to put up with her, Ryan."

"She hadn't changed," Ryan scoffed. "She was making out that she'd pulled herself together, that she could be a proper mum for Chloe, but the moment things started getting tough and not going her way, she cracked open a bottle."

"She sounds cowardly," Finley agreed. "But she's off, now. She can't hurt either of you ever again."

Ryan nodded, unconsciously placing a hand on his jaw where he'd been hit.

"They told me what she did to you," Finley went on, "and to get up and still fight back after a hit like that ... you're amazing, Ryback."

"Don't call me that," Ryan murmured, not meeting Finley's eyes. "I'm not a wrestler, that hit alone knocked two spoons out of me."

"You're right, you're not Ryback the wrestler," Finley agreed. "You're _stronger_ than Ryback the wrestler. Maybe he could beat everyone in this house with just his pinky finger, but he probably wouldn't survive what you've been through."

"May-Li says it's like a chronic illness."

"Well, that's nothing new for us," Finley said. "We're kind of veterans, so we know a thing or two."

"I guess so."

"I'm here any time you need me, alright?"

"You've already done so much for me, though," Ryan pointed out. "The contract, letting me come to your house because I didn't want to face mum, and then coming here to see me again ... what happened to not wasting spoons on people who aren't worth it?"

"Yeah, but you _are_ worth it," Finley insisted. "Don't you _dare_ think that your health and wellbeing aren't important to me."

His tone caught Ryan off guard and he snapped his head up to fully look at Finley's face. Even though part of it was obscured by the face mask, the steely look in his eyes was still piercing.

Those eyes then softened. "I'm sorry, I just ... care about you, alright?" Without warning, those arms were back around him again and Ryan couldn't help but cling back.

"You okay?" Finley asked softly in his ear.

"Yeah," Ryan whispered back, nuzzling into him. "Just ... hold onto me, please? I'm just a little unsteady right now."


	24. My Sibling's Keeper

While the two boys had been conversing in the room upstairs, Rosemary had been sitting down in the lounge with the others, trying to find out more about the whole situation. While a part of her knew that she probably shouldn't be asking about all this without Ryan's knowledge or consent, a larger part of her held a degree of morbid curiosity towards her brother's friend's dark past.

By the end of the story, however, she couldn't find any entertainment value. This wasn't some true crime story that kept people interested in it through the amount of mystery and speculation around it. This was simply a very real occurrence that was incredibly tragic and emotionally draining to both hear about and go through. For a long moment, she simply sat there, staring owlishly through her glasses.

Finally, she swallowed and spoke. "People really never suspected anything this whole time? No one tried to defend this kid? He was five, for crying out loud. Even if he somehow had done it, he couldn't have known what he was doing."

"It was mum's word against his," Chloe admitted, looking down. "Who were they more likely to believe? Besides, she said she didn't really mean to lie, she just panicked."

Rosemary frowned. Something wasn't quite adding up here. She knew that even good people made mistakes - of all people, a hot-headed thirteen-year-old like her could testify to that - but to blame a little child for something as nefarious as that, least of all your own child, took something else. "You really don't think she could hold a grudge against him for anything else? I mean, that's pretty low. If it really was a mistake, you'd think she'd try and take it back for the sake of, you know, _not messing your own kid up for life."_

"I'm not justifying it," Chloe said. "I'm just explaining it. She said afterwards that she did it for me so she could stay with me and I wouldn't be taken away from her."

"Well, would you want to stay with her, knowing the truth?" Rosemary asked, pointedly.

"It's not like I had much say at the time," Chloe defended.

"But you did just now," Rosemary pointed out. "You knew the whole story, and you were still considering going with her?"

"You don't know!" Chloe retorted. "You have no idea what it was like. She really was sorry, she spent _years_ trying to make it up to me and be a proper mum. I can't just throw all that away."

"Just like she threw Ryan away?" Rosemary said back, letting some anger boil to the surface. "He did _nothing_ wrong and yet he's been paying for what she did for years. Did she never consider what could happen to him, being dumped somewhere where he'd be treated like some child criminal?"

"It's better than both of us being taken!" Chloe let out, getting tired of the girl's attitude, before realising what she just said and clapping a hand over her mouth.

Rosemary's eyes widened while the rest of the house was stunned speechless for the second time that day. "Did ... did you actually just say that?!" Rosemary let out after a long moment. "It's better for your brother to be screwed up for life than for the both of you to be taken to a decent place where you could actually be taken care of?"

"It's ... not as simple as that," Tyler chimed in, though rather timidly. "Not all care homes are that great. The one I was in before this one was literally like a prison. It wasn't even meant to be a secure home or anything. The only reason I got out was that it burned down."

"That's only a matter of chance," Rosemary said. "Instead, Ryan was all but guaranteed to be taken somewhere like a prison, for no good reason other than his mum said so, while you were all but doted on, Chloe, treated like a fragile little princess."

"Stop it!" Chloe yelled. "You don't know anything about me! Stop making assumptions about stuff you can't know!"

"You literally just said that your mum spent years trying to make it up to you," Rosemary said. "And it's pretty damn likely you got all sorts of perks because no one can say no to the innocent girl in a wheelchair. I know that because Finley was the same, except when he was in remission."

"So what?" Chloe retorted. "Am I not allowed to have problems now?"

"No," Rosemary replied almost immediately. "You're not, because the people around you wouldn't allow it. Your mum, your care workers, even Ryan always bent over backwards for you, both now and when you were little."

"That's not my fault!" Chloe snapped. "I didn't choose any of this. It's not my fault people see me as poor, little, unfortunate Chloe. I can look after myself."

"That's good because you're going to have to," Rosemary replied. "Ryan is sick, probably dying. Not everything is about you anymore. You're not the delicate little angel that needs to be handled with care and gets all the special privileges. Suddenly, you're faced with possibly having to do a thing or two for him every once in a while. Then the opportunity arises for you to be that princess again and you can't resist running away from having to worry about your sibling with cancer. Am I right?"

She let her words hang in the air. Chloe looked like she had just been punched in the stomach, while everyone else shared uncomfortable glances with each other (except for Floss, who was eating a bag of sweets in a manner similar to how one would eat popcorn in a cinema, clearly enjoying the show). No one said a word, but they knew Rosemary was right. Except for the very early stages before his diagnosis when Chloe had jokingly offered Ryan her wheelchair when she noticed he had trouble walking, Chloe had appeared resentful of Ryan for almost the whole time he'd been ill, like he had the nerve to contract a deadly illness in her vicinity.

Then, Chloe's face changed from stunned to smug. "Rose, I think you're projecting." She relished in how the nickname made the red-headed girl scowl.

"What?"

"Look at Finley," Chloe said. "He's been ill for most of his life. All the attention has been on him most of the time. He's gotten perks, treats, probably a Wish from that charity like Ryan has. I don't think you like that very much, do you?"

Rosemary swallowed. "You're right, I don't like that," she admitted, "but it's not all the time. Finley has remission periods, and then he can be a normal big brother. Yes, it was worse when he was younger, he told me he was a little brat sometimes, but he's done some growing now. Not too long ago, he was listening to me whine about my annoying classmate who always takes forever to get her stuff out of her locker before I can get to mine*, and that's while he was in the chemo chair. Yeah, we fight, we argue, we complain, but ultimately, we can't afford to fall apart, because I need him just as much as he needs me. He helps me when he can, and helping him is really the least I can do. Yes, I hate his cancer, I wish he never had it. But there's nothing I can do except help, and he recognises that. Is it really too much for you to help Ryan a bit?" She addressed the last question to the whole room.

"Well ... to be fair, Ryan doesn't really ask for help that often," Bailey pointed out.

"Exactly, because he's not used to it," Rosemary replied. "He's had to grow up looking out for himself for most of his life. He only asks for it when he knows he'll actually get it. That's why he came to us when his mum first arrived. For crying out loud, my mum has known him for all of a few months and she's acted more like a mother to him, because he's a kid who needs help. Seriously, how the hell could your mum have done that? It boggles my mind. Did she have some kind of vendetta against a freaking four-year-old?!"

"He reminds me so much of Connor, it's almost spooky. When he was growing up, he grew to look more and more like him, and when he died, sometimes ... just looking at Ryan was enough to break my heart. I know, what a thing to say about my own son."

Chloe sighed. "The only thing I can think of is that ... she said he looks like our dad, and that it hurt to look at Ryan after our dad died. Maybe she just wanted to ... stop being reminded of him." The words tasted rancid on her tongue.

Rosemary scoffed. "Can't say I'm surprised. Just another non-crime that he's been punished for," she spat. "You'd better start shaping up, Chloe, because eventually, he's gonna realise you're not worth helping if you don't. It's not gonna be easy. He's gonna be an asshat sometimes, and you're gonna be an asshat sometimes. But face it, you don't have a choice."

Chloe stared at her, jaw clenched and eyes stormy, but she couldn't find an argument behind those eyes. She felt like the girl had peeled away several layers of tissue to reveal an ugly part of her that had been buried somewhere she barely knew existed. Like a tumour.

Satisfied, Rosemary grabbed her phone and texted Finley:

 _R: You guys okay?_

The reply was a minute later.

 _F: Ryback has fallen asleep in my arms. But he's a little better, just unsteady, he says_

She couldn't help but smile at the detail of Ryan feeling comfortable enough to fall asleep close to Finley, though it wasn't new knowledge for her, with them having slept together the night before.

 _R: Great, need a lift downstairs?_

 _F: Sadly yes. But call dad first._

 _R: Will do_

Rosemary locked her phone and stood up. "I need to go, I need to call my dad to pick us up and Finley needs a lift downstairs when he gets here. Have a good think about what happened today, I know it's a lot to digest, but what you choose to do with it can say a lot about you. For Ryan's sake, I hope it says something worth hearing."

If Rosemary has been holding a microphone, she would've dropped it at that point and dramatically marched away stage right.

At least she could do the latter.

 **Somehow, I did this all in a couple of hours, and yet, I'm pretty proud of this one.**


	25. Breakaway

***Elephant lumbers into the room* What was that? *Elephant trumpets* Has something happened? *Elephant steals most of my peanut butter* Hey, give them back! *Elephant eats peanut butter* WHY MUST YOU TAKE AWAY THINGS THAT ARE PRECIOUS TO ME?!**

 **Also, happy 19th birthday to me! ... I wish I could've given myself a better present.**

Ryan was back in the haze again. That blurred line between Awake and Not where time is nothing but an illusion and space is even less than that. His body already felt trembly and his consciousness as precarious as a vase being jostled from someone lightly brushing against its pedestal. Yet he found stability and comfort in the arms that held him, their warmth shielding him from the coldness of the reality that had settled around him.

It wasn't a feeling that Ryan was used to, growing up most of his life being treated like the rotten little boy that everyone believed him to be, including himself. Yet the lack of previous comforting experience almost served to enhance this one, like his whole life had been leading up to being embraced by one Finley Albaston.

But it was worth it. By God, it was worth every goddamn second.

So you could imagine his disappointment when he next opened his eyes to find himself alone the next morning.

Yeah, Finley couldn't stay forever, he knew that, but Ryan wasn't one to object to spending as much time with him as possible.

Still, he had to focus on basic things for now. His clothes were rumpled from sleeping in them, he was hungry for the first time in a while and he had a measly nine spoons from the stress of the previous days. In his eyes, nine spoons were too few to spend any mulling over those days. He had to move on. Cancer didn't take breaks for mental breakdowns. He had more radiotherapy later that same day, after all.

An hour and two spoons later saw him in the lounge, staring idly at the blank TV screen and fiddling with the remote in his hand, debating on whether he should turn it on or not. Maybe it would serve as a distraction to his numb state, maybe not. At this point, the Prime Minister could announce that the UK had declared World War III on Russia, complete with nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and it probably wouldn't faze him.

Besides, what could a bit of nuclear fallout do? Give him cancer?

This was a different kind of haze. Not the deliciously drowsy kind where you felt both heavy and floaty at the same time, like what he felt when Finley was here. This was as stifling as smoke, complete with dust particles that settled into a thick layer of grey grime over his perceptive lens, preventing him from processing things properly. Not many things could break through.

"Hey."

Except maybe that.

Ryan hadn't heard her approach, but then again, wheels tended to be quieter than footsteps.

"Aren't you meant to be at school?" he inquired, his voice flat and eyes fixed on the blank TV screen.

"Mike and May-Li let me stay back here today," Chloe said hastily. "Listen, I get it if you hate me and don't want to talk to me right now ..."

Her words piqued Ryan's interest and he turned his head fully to look at her. They sounded unusual coming from her mouth, normally she'd be the first to pin the blame on him. "What do you mean?"

"I was being so selfish," Chloe explained. "Not just with Mum but with the whole time of you being ill."

Ryan frowned. Yes, Chloe hadn't been the most charitable towards him, but it wasn't like he'd asked for it or even expected it. Still, it would be highly interesting - and beneficial - to find out more. "I stopped you going with Mum, you're gonna be stuck with me for the next few years, and somehow I'm not the selfish one for once? What's brought this on?"

Chloe sighed. "When your friend Finley came here yesterday, his sister Rosemary came too. She stayed down in the living room while you guys were upstairs, while we gave her the details of what happened."

"Go on."

"After we told her everything, she started grilling me, asking how Mum could do something like that to you and ... why I would still want to go with her after that. I didn't say much but somehow, she saw right through me. She saw how I was so used to Mum and most other people bending over backwards for me, and you were right there among them. But then you got ill and you couldn't do what you used to do for me anymore, and I ... I can't remember a time where I offered to help you with _anything."_

"Not like I asked for help," Ryan said shortly.

"I know, you like helping yourself," Chloe said, with a hint of a chuckle in her voice. "You're not made of glass, I know, but still, you could probably do with a few more spoons." She paused. "How many do you have, by the way?"

"Seven."

Chloe nodded. "I'm sorry, I'll try not to take up too many, I know you have radiotherapy later," she said before her expression sank again. "After Rosemary left, I had a think about what she said, and I realised that it was the same reason I didn't like how you wanted that operation, the one that was gonna paralyse you. I guess I just didn't like the idea of not being the only wheelchair user in the house anymore." She let out a mirthless chuckle until she saw his face. "What's up? You're not having it, are you?" she frowned.

Rosemary wasn't the only sister who could see through people, it turned out. "I got a lawyer," Ryan explained. "He wrote up a contract that's gonna let me have it. My doctor's accepted it and signed it. I don't know when I'm gonna have it, but I'm eventually gonna have that operation."

Chloe stared, before narrowing her eyes slightly. "... How did you afford a lawyer?"

"Pro bono," Ryan said. "Basically working for free because I'm a skint care kid and I need the job done. He's also Finley's dad so he could direct me to him. That's pretty much how it happened. It's gonna paralyse me, but I'd rather have that wait for this to kill me."

Chloe was silent, her eyes directed away from Ryan's face as she processed these prospects over again. Her facial expression looked like she was having quite some difficulty swallowing it, until she finally gulped it down. "I can live with that. You've done stupid things for selfish reasons before," she said bluntly, causing Ryan to pout slightly in annoyance, "but you're not selfish for wanting to live. I'm sorry for acting like that, and when you have it, I'll be there to help you with anything, I promise."

Ryan let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Thanks, Chlo."

"There's just one more thing I want to know, though," she went on, looking him more seriously in the eye again, putting him slightly on edge. "Does this have anything to do with me ... with what happened when we were little?"

Ryan very badly wanted to say 'No, of course not,' but the familiar sting of being caught out for something he couldn't deny begged to differ, preventing the otherwise instinctual words forming in his mouth. He turned his face away from Chloe and glanced out of the window, but the light shining through it made the wet sheen in his eyes harder to hide.

Chloe sighed. "I know you've always blamed yourself for what happened, but-"

"She let me think that for _years,"_ Ryan interrupted, clenching his fist. "I carried it around for so long, Chloe, I can't just take it off like that."

"You never hurt me," Chloe insisted, shifting herself from her wheelchair to the sofa so she could sit next to him, taking his clenched fist into her hand and gently forcing his fingers to relax. "You were so little."

" _Exactly,"_ Ryan said, not daring to put much voice behind his words lest it crack. "I was a happy little boy, and then she did that to me, and when you grow up with that, even when you doubt it for the slightest moment, it builds and builds and builds and ... now, we're here."

"So, you can't fully let it go," Chloe surmised. "Kind of like a chronic illness."

Ryan tried to laugh but it came out sounding more like a sob. It wasn't pleasant on the ear. "May-Li said that too. It's like a part of her is still here, telling me I'm bad." He sniffed. "Not that I need her to make me believe I'm bad. I mean, just look at everything I've done since."

She knew what he was referring to. "I won't tell them about you getting Mike suspended," she said. "You don't need it, not now and not ever. But you've got to try and better yourself, otherwise, they're not gonna want to help you, sick or not. That's what Rosemary said to me yesterday."

Ryan nodded, wiping his eyes with his free hand. "I'll try, but ... you need to help me."

She squeezed his hand. "You're not the only one she left an impact on. The more I thought about living with Mum, the more I realised how much she put me down too. There were so many things I couldn't do when I was with her. She wouldn't let me go on school trips, even if it was to a completely accessible museum, saying I wasn't well enough. She wouldn't even let me do wheelies after I ended up getting hurt after one - and for future reference when you have to use a wheelchair yourself, you can't live without doing wheelies if you want to go out anywhere on your own. This sounds really mean, but ..."

"I won't be offended," Ryan said.

"... but it was almost a relief going into care. I really missed her at first, but after a while, it was like chains had fallen from me. I was too young to really see it at the time but looking back on everything now, it feels like she was just using me and my disability to show what a great loving mum she was." Chloe once again looked like she was trying to down some hard-to-swallow pills. "I'm stronger than that now, stronger than she probably would've let me get with her."

Ryan extracted his hand from hers so he could use that arm to wrap around her. She reciprocated and leaned into his touch. "I might still miss her for a while," she confessed. "Even after everything she's done to us, she's still our mum, you know? Maybe we just needed to ... break away from her."

"She broke away from us a long time ago," Ryan said candidly. "About the same time Dad did, I reckon."

Chloe nodded, and they both fell silent, becoming absorbed in the specs of dust floating in the sunlight, too emotionally drained to speak about the matter anymore.

That was how they stayed until May-Li called them for lunch a couple of hours later. Yet more lazy hours passed until it was time for Ryan to return to radiotherapy. Chloe bid him farewell and he and Mike set off in his car.

* * *

A few spoons later saw Ryan being helped out of the linear accelerator and Mike approaching him as he was buttoning his shirt.

"Dr Gareth wants an appointment with us soon," Mike had informed him. "He wants to talk to us about the results of your recent scans. Are you okay to see him tomorrow afternoon?"

Ryan nodded slowly, though Mike's words instilled a flicker of fear in his stomach. Had his tumour gotten worse instead of better? Would he still be able to have the operation?

"He didn't sound too worried if that's any reassurance," the man said.

The following day was a school day, but his appointment meant he could leave early again. Few people questioned him about his absence the previous day - "cancer" seemed reason enough for most.

After finishing lunch, Ryan got up and made his way over to Mike's waiting car. He had to leave early due to his slower walking speed, but he eventually made it and soon enough, he and Mike were sitting in Dr Gareth's office with his latest PET scan images shown on the doctor's computer screen.

"From the scans, we can see how the tumour has remained stable since starting your treatment," Dr Gareth explained, indicating on the images. "That means it hasn't grown and doesn't appear to be in danger of spreading. However, in spite of that, it isn't shrinking as fast or as much as we would like, especially in preparation for radical surgery like yours. So, what I would like to propose to you is a different method of treatment - brachytherapy, or internal beam radiotherapy."

"What's that?"

"Well, what you've been having so far is external beam radiotherapy, where we aim the radiation inward from the outside," Dr Gareth said. "With internal beam radiotherapy, however, we put the radioactive substance directly inside the tumour. This enables us to aim a higher dose of radiation to a smaller area than external beam radiation. What we do is we implant little radioactive metal pellets, about the size of a grain of rice, into the tumour, and as they deliver their radiation, over time they get less radioactive. Normally, we'd just leave these pellets in, but as you're going to have surgery to remove the whole tumour anyway, the pellets will just end up being taken out along with it."

"So what's the point of this internal radiation if I'm just gonna get it taken out anyway?"

"Because tumour cells can still leech off into the surrounding tissue without being immediately obvious," Dr Gareth warned. "This is much more likely to decrease the chances of the tumour growing back after the operation than if we carry on as we have been doing."

"Okay ..." Ryan said uncertainly. "Is there a catch?"

"Afraid there is," Dr Gareth said, seriously. "Due to the implants, you will essentially be radioactive for about four days, so you will have to stay in a private room in the hospital for that amount of time until the radiation has decreased to a safe level."

"So, like quarantine?" Ryan questioned.

"That's ... well, you're not wrong," Dr Gareth said, unable to deny it. "You won't be completely closed off though. You can have visitors, but people will be required to keep a safe distance from you, like standing at the doorway instead of right next to you, for example. Hospital staff coming to examine you might have to wear protective clothing or be quick about it. You will essentially be treated like you're contagious, but rest assured, we will still take care of your every need."

"What do you say, Ryan?" Mike asked.

 **So, yeah, you probably saw where I took lines from Ryan's final episode. I really don't know how to feel about it because there were some parts I felt worked amazingly well and others that were as weak as water. Both the writing and acting during the scene with Ryan and his mum in the flat were on point as was pretty much everything in the second half of the episode, but the thing I hate most about it was not only Ryan leaving, but just how abrupt it was. I don't get the point of the beginning with Maureen as that led to a whole lot of nothing. If it was to build up to him leaving, they didn't need her in the mix, IMO they should've cut that whole bit and dedicated more time to the reasons for him leaving.**

 **While I am gutted he left and I wish they'd handled it better, the stuff that worked well was amazing IMO. I've watched that flat scene on its own more times than I care to count and Lewis's acting was as magnificent as ever. If the show is still going in a few years' time I really hope they bring him back as a young cop in an episode and he can "arrest" another troubled resident like himself and give sage advice.**

 **BTW the beginning sketch with the elephant was meant to represent the proverbial "elephant in the room" of Ryan being gone, and it took away my precious peanut butter just like how our precious Ryan was taken from us. Yeah, I heard that Lewis wanted to leave but that doesn't stop it being sad. I mean they didn't even address The Email That Need Not Be Named damn it!**


End file.
